


Twisted Path

by WhoAmIAmWho



Category: Bubblegum Crisis, Ranma 1/2
Genre: F/M, Self-Insert
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-07
Updated: 2020-12-07
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:14:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 302,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27934453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhoAmIAmWho/pseuds/WhoAmIAmWho
Summary: Written by Darren StefflerAnime fan gets magically transported into Anime Universe.Overpowered SI fic from the 1990s, originally posted to FFML.Archived here without permission (Contact me if you are the Author for moving to your page)Posted 'as is'
Relationships: Tendou Nabiki/Original Character(s)
Kudos: 3





	1. Chapter 1

Twister 

(Should I say hi? Why not?)

Hi! This be my first fanfic posted to this group and as such....  
(dramatic pause)  
I'M A LITTLE NERVOUS!!!!! AGGGGGHHHHH!!!!! 

*ahem* Pardon me.

Anyway, I got into anime last summer( don't look at me that way it's true! :)  
and I got hooked. Started watching anything I could get but that was it until  
I started watching Ranma 1/2.  
I've always had this irritating habit of changing a story I've read or  
seen in my mind to my liking but when Ranma came along I couldn't resist  
writing SOMETHING about it.  
This failure was MAJORLY caused by my reading, re-reading, and thrice  
reading a fanfic series called Undocumented Features created by  
Gryphon(now The Shadow I believe), ReBob, and MegaZone( Almighty  
Moderator of Anime Fanfic) . I really love their series and the way that  
they keep all the events in their universe straight.(PCHammer's stories  
in this universe I love as well.)  
Once I read their story, and watched Ranma 1/2, ideas started  
coming to me about a character(me sorta) using my usual handle and name  
kinda like some other people do...*hint hint* B->  
Problem was...I overdid it a little. My hands still hurt.  
Owch. I've been sitting on this thing since the beginning of August and  
got fed up with it and am finally putting darn thing up.  
Likely be the usual glips in the story that I've missed but...oh well.  
Feel free to mail me about them along with any helpful comments that you  
fell like you just HAVE to tell me. :) Don't be dissappointed that my  
character gets most of the focus in the story. I have much larger plans  
for him....(gotta get these ideas outta my head.)  
Chapters are mostly just markers in the story to help me remember  
where I was so consider them in the same way.  
I've re-done Ranma's lines a tad because of the two people's comments  
who have pre-read this story. Thankx to johnbil@wam.umd.edu, who first  
gave me his comments and to Draxt of #anime! with whom I mud with (easy  
since we're both at the same University and anime club. :) and who is an  
incurible Tenchi fan. :) (Guess who he is at 3k... :)

Here it comes.....

P.S. Also, I've done a rough second story but I won't go into  
much detail about it. Attempt to create some characters of me own you  
might say but still same story....sorta. Anyone who wants to review the  
rough draft, spelling, grammar, and other errors and all are welcome to  
help me out. Mail me at umsteff2@cc.umanitoba.ca 

Thankx.

This time for sure.

Twisted Path  
A Story Inspired by Rumiko Takahashi's Ranma 1/2  
by Darren Steffler

Prologue  
\--------

The Void between universes is not quite the empty nothingness it is  
believed to be. Forces beyond most beings contend here for supremacy  
over the others. Some are mindless, some are not, and some are not even  
able to be described on those terms.  
Powers from some planes spill out here and are tapped by other  
universes. The reality-warping forces changing the "normal" ways of those  
places. Natural or not, in whichever universe, the power behind the throne  
is located here.  
Two such forces, well known to mankind, can be found in the Void. The  
spillage from their planes can be found relatively nearby each other  
and travellers going from universe to universe witness their mighty  
clash. For these forces, siblings of a sort if you will, are both attracted  
and repelled by the other.  
They collide in an area where they meet and separate, for natural  
laws are absent in one yet entrenched in the other. The energies stay in that  
spot before going to other universes where they are tapped or dissipated.  
Many beings have tried to control this spot when they discovered it, but in  
vain. When either of the forces can control the controllers it becomes  
a hopeless task. Experienced races mearly leave this spot alone, knowing  
what it is and gaze in awe over the power involved.  
No one has ever actually tried to enter this area. The powerful  
energies there are random and capricious. Only the insane would attempt such a  
feat.  
Or perhaps...someone with no choice at all....

Chapter One  
\-----------

Through the open shutters of a blind, dawn's light shines forth and  
strikes an immobile figure on a bed. The figure's head is turned to the side,  
not yet aware of the fact that a new day has arrived and likely not overly  
concerned about that fact. The digital clock opposite to the face shines a  
bright red 10:00am and declares it Sunday, The Day to Sleep In.  
The room in which the bed occupies is in slight disarray as various  
objects litter the floor. These objects consist of dirty clothes, comic books,  
sci-fi/fantasy paperbacks, and a few large, university level textbooks that  
look like whales swimming in an ocean of debris.  
Muffled noises can be heard on the other side of the mostly closed  
door that separates this literary landslide from the rest of the apartment  
the room is connected to. A quiet but hurried departure can be deciphered  
from the sounds that continue to penetrate the small crack of space that  
the door allows. The abrupt cessation of noise heralds the fact that the  
person responsible has left the domicile.  
Silence.  
What bright sunlight and mere sound failed to do is successfully  
accomplished by vacuum.  
Slowly, the eyes on the face open.  
And shut.  
Open.  
Close.  
After several minutes, the head emits an audible sigh and keeps  
its eyes open when it attempts again. Eyes register the time on the clock  
and ponder this new datum for a second.  
*Well, looks like Mom's gone to her meeting.* Thinks the person on the  
bed. *Sigh. Better get up now or I'll fall asleep again and not get up  
'till 2pm.*  
The person slowly takes off the rest of the comforter that covers  
him, the rest having been flung away during the tossing and turning of sleep.  
A young, normal-looking, Western man is fully revealed by this action.  
Brown hair and hazel eyes placed on an average-looking face. The rest of the  
body, also of an average height, suggests that he doesn't really do much in  
the way of exercise but is still within a recommended weight range for his  
size.  
Both feet are lifted up and moved off the bed, then push down hard  
so the upper body comes up as nature intended.  
Pause.  
*Hmp. Better get your butt in gear or you'll never wake up Darren.*  
Another sigh and the person known as Darren Steffler stands up off  
his bed and picks his way carefully through the rare clear spots on the floor.  
*I think it's past time for another clean-up,* thinks Darren. *When  
over half the floor is covered I KNOW it's overdue.*  
Reaching the door, the young man known as Darren widens the crack  
that allowed the noise of his mother departing to accommodate his passage  
out of the messy room. Once in the hallway, he makes a left turn in the  
direction of the kitchen and places his body on auto-drive.  
*The joys of early morning,* mused Darren. *With the ever popular  
choice of factory-made, frozen waffles or factory-made, sugar frosted  
cereal flakes. Happy. Happy. Joy. Joy. I think tomorrow morning I'll  
dig up a cookbook and make some pancake batter from scratch for a change.  
Maybe slice some apples and plop them in with some cinnamon.... Haven't  
done that for a while. Hullo. Body has reached target. Commence mission.*  
Darren grasps his goal. The freezer door. With a sucking of opening  
insulation sealer, the door opens and the form of a package of blueberry  
waffles is revealed. The box is grabbed by Darren and the door closed again,  
more out of habit than desire to keep the cold air in.  
*Well, Phase One accomplished. On for the rest of breakfast...*

One hour later, and 200% more awake, Darren is at "his" computer.  
*Mom may lease the thing, but I'm the one who uses it a heck of a lot  
more,* Darren thought with amusement, *Better me than her. At least she knows  
not to muck around too much with it*  
The "thing" in question was a 486 IBM compatible computer running  
at 25 Mhz with 4 megabytes RAM. And a lousy 100 megabyte hard drive.  
*Hm. Does well for what I do now. Not that I'm suddenly going  
to try and crack the secrets of the universe. Great for current games  
though. Heh.*  
Typing on said computer, Darren focused again on the problem at hand.  
The program he was working on was for his mother but a few problems seemed to  
be cropping up in the program. Programming in Turbo C is not too bad, except  
for one...well _two_, minor problems Darren always had.  
"AGGGHHHH!!! Damn pointers!" shouted Darren, "Shoot! I always do this  
to myself. I never plan ahead and just go straight into programming the  
bloody thing." Darren sighed."Another thing is that I never can concentrate  
on this for long," he sighed again, "I work on it for a day then leave it  
alone for a week! And in the _meantime_...I goof off! I know it's summer but I  
_would_ like to _finish_ this darn thing!"  
Darren took his hands off the keyboard, propped his head up with  
them, and started staring at the screen. "I've finished third year Computer  
Science and I still don't know what to do for a career... At least once I get this thing  
done this program I can honestly say I'm a computer programmer. Assignments  
for homework don't count in MY mind. I want to do something by myself..."  
Darren stared at the screen for a few more seconds before giving up  
in disgust.  
"Sigh. Well, I guess I'll goof off again..."

Wandering back to his room, Darren picked up a thick graphic novel  
from the litter of material on the floor and jumped onto his bed to read  
it.  
*Now here's one of the main reasons I've been "goofing off",* mused  
Darren. *I sure have gotten hooked on this anime stuff this summer. Never  
looked at it much before...but then, I _like_ science fiction and fantasy. Once  
I actually started reading it, it got me.*  
The volume referred to was one of the volumes created from the manga  
series, Ranma 1/2. Covering the graphic novel was a yellow jacket with the  
two forms of Ranma on the front.  
Flipping through the pages to a spot he left before, Darren continued  
his thinking. *This is the best of the manga series I've seen yet. Too bad  
I haven't got all of the english-language version releases yet but at least  
I'm working on it. All the anime releases are good too... The characters  
sure can be amusing at times, especially when Ranma's "problem" complicates  
matters and also when he tries to stop Happosei's lecherous behavior from  
getting him into more trouble......*

Chapter Two  
\-----------

"He he he! Panties! Ah, my sweet darlings!"  
"Happosei!!! Come back here you LECH!!!"  
Pedestrians walking along the street were startled this morning by  
two unusual sights though a few recognized the two from previous scenes  
like this. One was withered, ancient, and very small man was hopping swiftly  
down the street with a sack larger than himself on his back. The sack had one  
or two female undergarments streaming out from the stuffed container. Chasing  
the old man was a handsome young man with black hair tied in a pig-tail in the  
back. The young man, wearing Chinese clothing, had a fustrated look on his  
face.  
*Damn him!* Ranma thought while running after the bouncing Master  
of the Anything-Goes Martial Arts school. The figure ahead of him may be  
small but the amount of trouble he stirred up went all out of preportion  
to his size. *Pop shoulda put weights on his legs and thrown him into the  
deepest part of the ocean! At least he wouldn't have gotten free and merely  
irritated the fish!*  
"Will you STOP! Akane will have a fit if she finds out you've emptied  
her dresser drawers when she gets back from Dr. Tofu's with Kasumi! I DON'T  
want her to jump to the wrong conclusion (as par course) and blame ME!"  
"Ha ha ha! You'll have to catch me first!" As he said so, Happosei  
turned left down another street as pedestrians stared at the funny, little man  
with the big sack on his back.  
Panting with the effort, Ranma followed. *Dammit! This is getting me  
nowhere! Where would that old lecher _go_ around this part of town? Hmm...  
That's IT! The women's langerie shop! Four blocks from here. I'll take a short  
cut and wait for him there.* With that thought in mind, a leap carried him onto  
the roof of the nearest building and started hurriedly towards the langerie  
shop in a straight line. *Once I get there, what then? I can't go head-on at  
the old fart. No time. Old he may be, but no one has told HIM that. Akane won't  
be long at Tofu's so I gotta be quick...*

Five minutes later, Happosei glanced behind him. "Hmm. I must've  
lost Ranma. Probably couldn't keep up. Ah, this younger generation has no  
stamina at all. What a pity." Slowing a bit, Happosei made a final turn  
and saw his goal. The women's langerie shop appeared like a sacred shrine  
to pantydom in his eyes. Like a magnet, he is drawn to the entrance of  
the store. "Ah, my precious sweethearts! Soon you will be liberated from  
your confinement and be with me! This shouldn't take more than a few  
seconds. Hang on my darlings!" With a bounce, Happosei swiftly leaped into the  
shop.  
Right into the horde of angry women waiting for him.  
"HENTAI!!!" They all shouted at him as they attacked.  
After five minutes of beating, clawing, broom-swinging punishment,  
there wasn't much of Happosei recognizable in the bloody blob of flesh that  
was left on the floor. One of the women took a dustpan, swept Happosei onto  
it, and threw him out the door, crying, "AND DON'T COME BACK!"  
Groaning on the street, Happosei tried to gather his scattered wits  
about him. "They..were..waiting. How..did..they..know..I..was..coming?"  
From inside the store he could hear voices.  
"Thanks for letting us know that that hentai was coming."  
A familiar feminine voice replied amusedly, "No problem. Oh, I'll  
take these back to where they belong." A female outline appeared in the  
doorway carring Happosei's beloved bag of bounty.  
"Well, thanks again! Good-bye! Come on girls, back to work!"  
The girl holding the sack waved good-bye and stepped out into  
Happosei's red-eyed sight.  
Ranma-chan looked at the sorry mess on the street. "Well, well,  
you old fart. Guess you got what was coming to you." She smirked.  
"RANMA! I'LL...NOT...FORGIVE...THIS..."  
"If you only knew how sorry I feel... NOT! Well, I gotta go replace  
these unmentionables in Akane's room before she gets back. So..."  
Waving good-bye, Ranma-chan hurried off with Happosei's sack and was  
soon out of sight.  
Red faced with rage, Happosei tried to get up. After several tries  
he finally stood, although unsteadily, erect. Staring in the direction  
where Ranma-chan was last seen before turning out of sight, he ground out,  
"Ranma...I...will...have...my...REVENGE!!!" With that last word, Happosei  
swung out a hand and struck a nearby tree.  
This tree had been standing for over 40 years on this street. Many  
children had played in it's branches when it had become strong enough to  
support their weight. Fierce storms and even an out-of-control car could  
not defeat this tree's stoic determination  
It split in half.  
Both halves fell over.  
Ranma was in deeeeeeeeep trouble.

Twenty minutes later, Ranma-chan reached the entrance to the Tendo  
home.  
*I hope Akane hasn't come home yet. I'd better hurry up and change  
back and then replace her...um...stuff.*  
With Happosei's sack hanging behind her, Ranma-chan quickly entered  
the residence she now considered home and headed towards the bathroom. Pop  
and Mr. Tendo were likely playing Go in their usual spot. A glance  
at the empty kitchen told her Kasumi and, thankfully, Akane were not yet  
home.  
That left Nabiki.  
"Well hello there, Ranma," a cheerful, yet slightly sarcastic voice,  
called out. "Run into a little problem? That wouldn't be Happosei's sack, now  
would it?" As she walked towards Ranma-chan, Nabiki's small smile widened  
further at Ranma-chan's discomfort.  
"Nabiki....," Ranma-chan growled slightly.  
"Now don't tell me.... Happosei lent his prize pupil his favorite...  
ahem...storage sack to practice some new routine as training?" Nabiki's  
right eyebrow arched up at the word "training".  
Ranma sighed, she would find out sooner or later anyway. Nabiki  
always somehow managed to worm out the truth, and blackmail you later,  
eventually.  
"Alright. I saw Happosei sneak into Akane's room 'bout a hour ago. When  
I followed he had managed to snatch all of her...ah...stuff. I told  
him to put it all back but he just jumped out the window so I chased after  
him. I had to change into a female to get all the girls in a langerie  
store to ambush him so I could get Akane's stuff back in time." Ranma-chan  
smiled at the memory, "Got him good too."  
"Hmm... Well, you'd better hurry up and put it all back quick. I don't  
think Akane and Kasumi will be much longer," Nabiki started to walk away  
and then turned her head back. "After all...she might get the idea you wanted  
to borrow her things for a while," Nabiki chuckled at Ranma-chan's reaction  
to her comment and left.  
Ranma-chan fumed, "I shouldn't have expected anything different  
from HER." 

After some hot tap water, Ranma quickly went to Akane's room to  
replace her things in hopefully their proper places.  
"Maybe I should just leave the sack and let Akane sort it all out,"  
Ranma thought about it a bit then shook his head. "Then she'd ask why  
I let Happosei take her stuff in the first place. Stupid tomboy." With that  
in mind, Ranma started to re-fill Akane's drawers with their rightful  
occupants.  
Unfortunately, Nabiki was in another part of the house when Akane  
and Kasumi returned and was unable to delay Akane.  
Akane was feeling a little depressed after seeing Dr. Tofu in his usual  
state after talking to Kasumi. Akane had thought she was over him but she felt  
down even so. *It will take some time before I am completely over him I guess,*  
Akane mentally sighed, *I'll go change into something a little more comfortable.  
Maybe that will cheer me up a bit.*  
When Akane entered her room, the sight that greeted her drove  
all thoughts of Dr. Tofu from her mind all right. Ranma was there, frozen  
in mid-motion with one of Akane's bras in his right hand. The left was  
holding open a sack filled with similar items.  
Needless to say, Akane was not impressed.

"Kasumi! When did you get back?" Nabiki asked.  
"Just a minute ago, why?"  
Suddenly, sounds from upstairs boomed down.  
"RANMA NO BAKA!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Crash! Bang!  
"AKANE! WAIT!"  
Nabiki smirked.  
"Oh, no reason."

Chapter Three  
\-------------

As Nabiki listened to one of her favorite songs in her room, she could  
hear Ranma and Akane still shouting at each other. Even muffled by wood and  
song.  
*Don't those two know how to have a QUIET argument?*  
Lying down on her yen-symbol covered sheets on her bed, Nabiki  
contemplated the two 'lovebirds'. *One of these days, either Ranma or Akane  
will stop arguing with the other and be in for a big surprise...*  
Although they weren't exactly fond of each other at the beginning,  
Nabiki could tell that over time, SOMETHING had grown between her sister  
and her betrothed. *They would probably die if they ever told each other  
their true feelings about the other. Both too stubborn to be the first to  
do so though. Stoneheads.*  
Nabiki reached out, got her diary, and flipped it open. However,  
instead of a girl's private life and feelings, it looked more like an  
accounting ledger for a bookie.  
*Hmm... Looks like I'm starting to get low on yen. I wonder if Kunou  
has gotten tired of his current batch of photos.*  
Sounds of the argument brought her back to the present.  
*If I EVER get a boyfriend, he'd better not be as boneheaded as Ranma.  
Smiling she amended to herself, *And rich of course.*  
A new sound caught Nabiki's attention, it was the low muttering voice  
of an elderly man. *Happosei,* Nabiki guessed. *Finally managed to crawl  
home I gather...*  
Standing up from her bed and heading towards her door, she heard some  
words in Happosei's muttering.  
"Mumble....revenge....summon....growl....teach....Ranma..."  
*Uh oh. Sounds like Ranma REALLY ticked him off this time.*  
Waiting till Happosei went past her door and entered his own room,  
Nabiki quietly opened her door, snuck over to Happosei's door and placed her  
ear on the door. She wondered if this would take long but Happosei's voice  
caught her attention.  
"Where did I put that scroll...? Scroll, scroll, bra, scroll. Panty,  
ah, that's where it went! Scroll, bra, scroll... Here it is! Now according to  
this, this spell will summon a demon to make life a living Hell for the  
target of the summoner's ire. Perfect! Just like I remembered! This will  
teach Ranma not to mess around with a Master of the Art! I'll do it  
tonight near the lake outside town on that large, flat stone. Midnight  
of course. Better get ready and gather my strength. Ah, my darling panty  
come to...."  
Nabiki left at that point. *Midnight. Hm.* She smiled. *Looks like I  
won't have to go to Kunou after all....*

Around 11:45pm sounds of people moving though the underbrush echoed  
in the forest outside town.  
"Nabiki had better be right about this or I'll..."  
"Ranma! You know she wouldn't lie about something like this."  
"You're right. Especially after I paid her 2000 yen."  
Whap! "Ranma!"  
"Will you two be quiet! We're getting close to the lake."  
Silence.  
The forms of Ranma, Akane, Genma, and Soun, appeared at the  
edge of the forest. The sky was partially clouded over so the moon shone  
intermittently over the lake which was beyond the edge of the forest.  
Genma looked at the lake and then to the right, "The stone Nabiki  
heard Happosei taking about must be that way," He pointed a general  
direction to the right. "It's a small ways into the forest and we will be  
able to see it from the edge of the lake. We should be able to hear him  
soon." Genma shivered. "We had better hurry, it's almost midnight."  
"Why are YOU so frightened?! I'M the one he's after!"  
Genma relaxed. "You're right. I'd forgotten."  
Ranma pushed Genma into the lake.  
After Genma-panda came out, with Soun restraining him from doing the  
same to Ranma, the small party continued along the lakeside and soon heard  
chanting. Looking through the forest's trees, the party saw Happosei  
cross-legged on the large, flat stone. As they quietly approached the Master  
they could see a chalk circle with a pentagram in front of him.  
The Place of Arrival for the soon-to-be summoned demon.  
"It sounds like he's almost done. What should we do?" Mr. Tendo shifted  
nervously.  
"Well, since I'm his target....," Ranma looked around, "Any rocks  
nearby?"

Happosei was pleased. He'd perfectly inscribed the Place of Arrival  
and was almost ready to release the spell to summon the demon. Most of it  
was completed. He could feel the complicated spell that could reach beyond  
this universe, waiting to do it's function. All he had left to do was to  
describe the demon the spell recommended, and then Ranma would pay!  
Raising his hands above his head, Happosei intoned, "I cast this  
spell. I am Happosei. I wish to summon the demon..." BONK! The rock Ranma  
threw hit it's mark: Happosei's head. Happosei was sightly dazed as a result.  
*No!* He could feel the spell start to go beyond his control.  
He gathered his will and focused it upon the spell before it went completely.  
Happosei didn't have much time.  
*Bring me a demon!*  
He directed that thought towards the spell and felt it respond.  
The spell ripped through dimensional barriers and went beyond this  
universe searching for it's target. One fragment of the spell split from the  
main spell and flung off uncontrollably in another direction. The fragment was  
incomplete without the main body of the spell. It only searched for something  
that it could easily bring back to it's creator. Thusly, it searched for a  
mind that was already focused on, and resonated with, its home universe...

Chapter Four  
\------------

Darren was feeling tired but fulfilled. He had gone back to his program  
and, after a lot of time and effort, found the source of the pointer error.  
He had then proceeded to add on more of the features that he wanted in the  
program. What his mother wanted could wait until he had more time. Say a  
decade or two. Sheesh. Ask someone what they wanted in a program and they  
want Artificial Intelligence.  
He was surprised at the time when he checked his watch.  
*Five minutes to midnight already? Wow. Time sure flies when you're  
having fun.*  
Getting up from the computer, Darren stretched. He walked back to his  
room and picked up that Ranma 1/2 graphic novel, again, while plopping back onto  
his bed. Now dressed only in a light, white t-shirt and shorts, he wasn't  
overly concerned about falling asleep while reading.  
*I'll just finish reading this and then catch some Z's Hm, midnight.  
12 o'clock and all's welllll. Heh*  
Suddenly, the room blurred briefly.  
*What the...?? I must be a heck of a lot more tired than I think I  
am if my vision's blurring! I'd better leave off the novel and just go to  
bed.* Darren dropped the book back amongst it's neighbours on the floor and  
closed his eyes. *Weird though. That's never happened to me before and I've  
done plenty of all-nighters for school. I also got a full night's sleep  
last night. Ah well. Body knows best.*  
With his eyes closed, Darren failed to notice that his room was  
continuing to blur on and off now. With increasing rapidity.  
Starting to feel a little odd and thinking by now that he was coming  
down with something, Darren opened his eyes. *Aggh. Maybe I'd better get some  
of Mom's vitamins. Hope I'm not getting something real baaaaaaaaAAAAHHHHH!!!!*  
"WHAT THE HECK?!!!"  
Darren viewed a whirlpool of blurred images of his room swirling around  
him. The speed of the motion was visibly increasing in velocity. Even his  
bed, a brief island of stability, was starting to blur before his eyes.  
Voice shaking, Darren muttered, "W-what's g-g-going on h-here?!?" He  
grabbed at his alarm radio on a nearby nightstand. Instead of the firm, solid  
material he expected, his fingers _flowed_ through the clock face before  
Darren jerked his hand back in shock.  
Then he was falling.  
"Oh sshhhhhooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOTTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"  
Darren dropped down a kaleidoscopic tunnel and was accelerating rapidly  
from what he could see in his state of panic. Images flashed past him as  
he flew by. Mountains. Cities. Underwater views. Planets. Suns. Galaxies.  
All this, and more, went by until he was going to fast to see the images  
anymore. He was almost getting used to this when suddenly he was launched  
out the end of the tunnel and into...nothing.  
That's what it was. An empty space. Nothing. A...Void.  
Darren stared disbelievingly at this as he floated in the blankness.  
He had read enough sci-fi and fantasy novels to guess where might be.  
"The Void. Oh no, I have GOT to be dreaming this. I closed my eyes  
and I fell asleep. Right. Sure." He wondered abstractly how one survived  
in the Void, even in a dream. "By whatever brings you here of course. DUH!"  
Feeling a little better after convincing himself he was dreaming,  
Darren wondered what was likely to come next. He was sure his mind wouldn't  
do this to him and just leave him here.  
He absently noticed that the tunnel was gone. It had moved swiftly  
away out of sight while he was thinking. That meant two things: either the  
tunnel or he was still moving at a good rate. Darren was inclined to believe  
the latter.  
He looked around and spotted something in the distance. It was  
opposite of the direction the tunnel had vanished but he was coming up  
on it very slowly. Darren decided to close his eyes and rest for a bit before  
he got close to see whatever it was...  
"Hello mortal! Having a good trip? Hmm?"  
Startled, Darren opened his eyes and saw the person, or rather being,  
who had spoken to him. The being must have been the object he had seen from  
afar but somehow he had suddenly come up right beside it.  
The being looked like a human male with a few exceptions. One was the  
pointed ears and eyebrows that made him look like a Star Trek Vulcan. Another  
was the fact that, instead of a Vulcan green tinge on the skin, _his_ had a  
crimson hue. As well, the man had to be seven feet tall when standing. For  
clothing, he had on a blood-red robe that covered most of his body and  
what looked like gold embroidery sewn into the garment. Very well done too.  
"Uhhhh, yes. It's been a very weird ride so far. I've never had  
this sort of dream before though."  
The man looked disbelieving for a second before talking again. With  
an amused tone he said, "Dream? I am afraid you are mistaken mortal. This  
is no dream." While saying this, Darren noticed the pointed fangs the man had  
in his mouth.  
A little aggrieved at the man's tone, and also a little frightened that  
this might not BE a dream, Darren replied, "Then do YOU know how I got here?!"  
Smiling a bit, the man said, "_Here_ is the Void. _How_ is by some  
obviously botched summoning spell that has brought you and me here. We  
are now currently travelling, by means of the spell, towards the place in  
the Void that will be the entry point to the summoner's universe. The spell  
apparently wanted a demon and I was the first such it found by chance.  
Even though I am an Arch-Demon, I go by the name of Malkon by the way, and  
could have resisted, I was feeling bored and decided to let it take me so I  
could match wits with the bungler who cast the spell and hopefully have some  
fun. That you, an obvious mortal, got caught, means that a stray potion of  
this spell of a 'Happosei' must have been attracted to you somehow. Do you  
have any idea, hmmm?"  
After digesting this torrent of information, Darren was confused.  
"Arch-Demon? _Happosei_? Now I _know_ I must be dreaming."  
Malkon looked intrigued. "You have heard of this Happosei character?  
How very strange and unusual."  
Darren dazedly spoke, "I _hope_ it's not the Happosei I'm thinking  
about. I was just reading a...um...picture book which has one of the  
characters as being called 'Happosei'. He's a weird old man who is a Master  
of the Anything Goes martial arts school in the story. Can't resist girl's...  
ah...," Looking at the Arch-Demon's interested gaze Darren continued, "Panties.  
Or bras. Do anything to get them. They call him a hentai or pervert. One of  
his old pupils has a son called Ranma, which is the main character of the  
story. Ranma always tries to stop Happosei whenever he can from stealing,  
ah, unmentionables. Ranma must have really got him mad if Happosei tried to  
summon a demon. If it _is_ the same Happosei, that is."  
Malkon looked thoughtful. "It must be. I can think of no better reason  
why the spell would have grabbed you otherwise. Hmm. Most useful."  
Downcast, Darren muttered, "Great. I can't even speak Japanese."  
Malkon slapped him on the back with bone-jarring force. "You have  
given me some very useful information. If you wish, I will repay you by  
casting a spell that will give you full knowledge of the language and even  
how to read and write it." He smiled with a disconcerting flash of his fangs,  
"I could use the practice in any case."  
"Great! Go ahead. I just hope it doesn't take too long to get there."  
Malkon smiled mysteriously, and uttered softly so Darren wouldn't hear,  
"Not long for me but for you, fool, it will be...very long indeed."  
He chuckled quietly.

"Whoa. New definition for the word _cram_," Darren said as he held his  
head in his hands. Words, underlying meanings, and symbols were bouncing around  
in his head. Understanding of them all was rapidly coming to him.  
"It will take a while for the knowledge to settle in but when it  
does it will be as if you grew up learning the language," Malkon smiled.  
"I have not done that in quite some time. It is good to get some practice."  
"Well it sure makes one's head feel like it's full of cotton balls.  
Whoo," Shaking his head, Darren looked around at the Void. They were approaching  
something. Something HUGE.  
"What is THAT??"  
"That, little mortal, is the main source for two of the most powerful  
forces used in most universes. It is called the Event." Malkon looked at the  
growing display ahead with a slight bit of awe and greed.  
"Main source? Source of what?"  
Smiling, due to his pleasure in his obviously superior position of  
knowledge, Malkon explained the phenomenon that was getting closer, "This  
started in the very beginning of creation. The two streams of energy you see  
ahead of us come from two limitless planes of Power. Even though they are  
different, they have an...odd attraction to each other. This attraction  
created permanent openings from those planes into the Void where they met  
each other in the display you now see. The blue stream is from the plane of Mind  
and the purple one is from the plane of Magic. They meet in that spherical  
ball of energy but still somehow remain apart from the other. The energy from  
each side eventually goes into other universes and planes where natural  
forces or beings tap it."  
"So this is the source of all psionic and magic powers? Weird. I don't  
suppose anyone has ever tried controlling it?"  
Malkon expression was sad, "Unfortunately, the energy is very unstable  
here and unmanageable. No one able to come here has ever attempted it. It would  
be an exercise in futility to try."  
They both glazed at the incredible display for a while.  
Then Darren shuddered a bit, "Well, cosmic fireworks look great but do  
you know how soon we get out of this place?"  
"For me, about an hour."  
Darren nodded, then did a double-take. "Wait a minute. For you? What  
about me?"  
Malkon turned towards him and Darren saw that his expression was  
a smiling one, but one now suited to a being called an arch-demon. "While  
your presence as been an amusing and entertaining one during this short  
trip in the Void, I cannot allow you to accompany me to our mutual destination.  
_That_ would result in our two material beings appearing in the same place and  
time and thus, our deaths. The one solution that is most appealing to me is  
to remove the possibility of you following me. Mearly killing you would not  
suffice because your body would still be here. Therefore, since I knew we  
would be passing this place, I plan on throwing you into the Event which  
is now slightly below and ahead of us. It has an attractive force which should  
be more than sufficient to drag you in, spell or no spell. Unfortunately for  
you, I have no doubt in my mind that you will not survive this unique  
experience."  
Darren was stunned by this calm statement of his coming death.  
Malkon glanced ahead, "Hm. I do believe the time has come. Good-bye."  
Moving with extreme swiftness, the arch-demon's hands quickly trapped Darren's  
shirt.  
Darren broke from his stunned trance with this movement, "No! Wait!"  
An evil chuckle was Malkon's only reply. With a sharp, jerking motion,  
Malkon launched him with both physical and magical strength into a trajectory  
that would plunge him into the center of the Event.  
"YOU BAASSsssstttttaaarrr.....," Darren's voice faded as he flew away  
from Malkon.  
The arch-demon watched with the interested eyes of an observer. No  
one, to his vast knowledge, had ever actually _tried_ to enter the Event.  
The energies there were just too unpredictable. The mortal might be vaporized  
even before entering the Event...or not. This appeared to be the _not_ case  
as Malkon saw the helpless figure plunge head-first into it.  
*Well, even though I will not actually see what the mortal goes  
through before he dies, at least that sight was compensation enough.*  
Now that the worry of mutual annihilation was over. The arch-demon  
turned his mind to the next immediate problem. Happosei.  
*However, with the information the late mortal gave me, it should  
be a simple problem indeed. Hm. I never did ask the mortal for a name. Pity.  
Not like it would have mattered in the end.*  
Malkon smiled.

Chapter Five  
\------------

Happosei was not happy.  
Still dazed from the rock Ranma threw at him, Happosei was not able to  
mount much of a defence against Ranma and Happosei's two former pupils. And so,  
after a few minutes, he was held firmly in all three of their grasps.  
"How much longer you old fart?!"  
Happosei glared at Ranma, "You whippersnapper! _You_ disrupted the  
spell before it was completed! I have no idea _what_ kind of demon will  
appear now! Or, for that matter, how much longer it will take!"  
"You actually expect me to believe that old fool?!"  
"You can wait a few more minutes Ranma!" Akane shouted from the forest  
behind them, "Do you _want_ to see the demon?!"  
Ranma turned his head towards Akane, "I just want this done and over  
with. Standing on a stupid rock, at midnight, when it's cold out, is not my idea of  
a good time."  
"Well Ranma, why don't you..."  
WHOOSHHHHH!  
A gout of red flames appeared in the Place of Arrival with a sound  
that interrupted Akane's sentence. Brimstone smell filled the air around the  
stone that held the now-visible demon and the four nervous mortals standing  
on the rock. Akane froze at the sight of the demon's arrival.  
The arch-demon looked around and saw what he supposed was Happosei, two  
nervous mortals and a panda were holding him tightly. Malkon smiled. This  
would be even easier than he thought.  
He bowed to Happosei. "Good evening. I do believe one of you by the  
name of Happosei summoned me?"  
Happosei, Ranma, Soun, and Genma-panda, gaped at Malkon.  
The arch-demon sighed and shook his head dramatically, "Ah, no usual  
demands, bargains, etc. etc.? Wealth? Women?" At that last, Happosei perked  
up and stood a little straighter. Malkon was inwardly amused. *Yes, _much_  
easier....*  
Ranma, unfortunately, noticed Happosei's change in attitude too.  
Tightening his grip on the old Master he replied, "Sorry pal. There's been  
a mistake. So why don't go back where you came from."  
Turning his head to look at Ranma, the arch-demon chuckled, "You  
must be Ranma I gather. I had heard you might have been the reason I was  
summoned, or rather, a demon summoned." Ranma was understandably startled  
at this. "Oh dear. I must at least tell you _my_ name since I obviously  
know yours. I am arch-demon Malkon, at your service." He bowed.  
When the word, ARCH-demon was uttered, Soun and Genma-panda paled.  
Malkon continued, "When I found out who summoned me, I decided to  
come prepared for the summoner's desires." Happosei's face brightened.  
The arch-demon started to conjure women's undergarments. Some with a lace  
lining, some with sequins. All were of a red, silky material that looked  
incredibly soft. As a pile formed at the arch-demon's feet, he continued,  
"But if there's been a mistake then it really is a pity. Especially after  
bringing all these...items with me." He sighed deeply, "Too bad."  
When the first of the arch-demon's conjurations appeared, Happosei  
tried to advance towards the chalk-dust inscribed Place of Arrival. Ranma,  
Soun, and Genma-panda, immediately held him back. As more of the items  
appeared however, they found that they were fighting a losing battle. Akane  
looked on in horror as Happosei suddenly broke free from the hands holding him  
back. Two feet away from the circle, Ranma tackled him. Happosei fell down  
scrabbling towards the pile of bounty in front of him. His hands smeared  
the circle and the conjured pile vanished.  
Everyone except Malkon froze.  
"Ah. Thank you very much. Thank you very much indeed."  
Walking with some resistance, he strode out beyond the now broken  
Place of Arrival and stretched his arms dramatically.(or perhaps demonically :)  
"So nice to get out of that restricting circle. Breath of fresh air and all  
that." Looking around, Malkon spied Akane in the trees. "Hmmm. A vision of  
loveliness amongst the trees. Come out my dear flower and let us get a better  
look at you."  
Akane started backing up instead but suddenly the arch-demon's eyes  
glowed softly red and she found herself walking into the clearing. "Yeeessss.  
As I thought, truly a treasure worth _possessing_." Akane mentally struggled  
against those glowing eyes but still walked towards Malkon. "Strong-willed  
too. I _am_ impressed." The arch-demon's fanged smile sent shivers up  
her back.  
Suddenly, the eyes were gone and she could move again.  
"Aggghh!" Splash!  
Underestimating them, Malkon had dismissed Ranma and the others.  
"Taunt _me_ will you!" Happosei shouted after the arch-demon. He  
started running towards the lake, with Soun and Genma-panda soon after him.  
"Akane! Are you all right?" An unguarded moment of concern showed  
briefly on Ranma's face as he looked at her.  
"I'm alright...I think"  
"Good. I wonder what he saw in a tomboy like you anyway."  
"Grrrr...." Whap!  
Ranma soon out-distanced Happosei by means of Akane's punch and  
landed on the lake's shore.  
"Ow!" Ranma rubbed his chin. "I _wish_ she wasn't so hot-tempered all  
the time. Uh oh." He looked around at the empty beach. "Now where'd that demon  
go?"  
"Enjoying a well deserved dunking at the moment, and it is  
_arch_-demon not demon."  
Ranma whirled towards the voice of the Hell-spawn and saw Malkon's head  
above the level of the water. The rest of him was slowly rising out of the  
surface of the lake. "That lapse on my part was inexcusable and I certainly  
left myself wide open for that. Well, as long as I do not allow that to happen  
again it will be alright. However," Malkon's face reflected his anger, "WHERE  
IS THAT OLD FOOL?!"  
"The old fart will be here in a moment. Will I do in the meantime?"  
That said, Ranma lifted a large rock on the shore and threw with accuracy  
at the hovering arch-demon.  
"Not likely." Malkon said mildly as he easily caught the stone. "Since  
I am already wet, I see no reason why you should not be as well." Magically  
enlarging the rock to enormous size, Malkon hurled the boulder into the lake.  
This created a small tsunami which swept Ranma, and the now present Happosei,  
Genma-panda, and Soun off their feet.  
Coughing water, Ranma-chan shouted, "Now I'm REALLY mad!"  
Still levitating above the lake, Malkon witnessed the change. "How  
unusual!" He eyed the now sopping-wet Ranma-chan. "What a _fascinating_ curse.  
Now _this_ I must get a closer look at." Suddenly, Ranma-chan was floating  
helplessly towards the arch-demon and soon came to a halt in mid-air in front  
of him. Eyes glowing, Malkon questioned her. Ranma-chan couldn't resist.  
"How did this curse come upon you?"  
"I fell into the drowned girl spring at the cursed springs of  
Jusenkyou in China," Ranma-chan tried to stop the words but failed.  
"How does it work?"  
"Cold or room-temperature water turns me into a girl. Hot water  
changes me back."  
"Hmm. That will do for now." Releasing a furious Ranma-chan from his  
spell, Malkon levitated her back to shore. Gazing at the land-bound people on the  
shore, Malkon said, "Now. What _shall_ I do with you all...."

Akane was worried.  
When that demon had trapped her with his eyes she had gotten the feeling  
that he was _playing_ with them. *If he _is_ an arch-demon, then he likely is.  
Happosei was VERY lucky to have caught him off-guard like that.* The power  
she had felt in those eyes was great. Akane shivered. She feared even Ranma  
would be unable to beat that thing. Then the arch-demon would come back for  
_her_. She was _very_ certain of that. No one she knew could possibly...well,  
maybe Cologne might know a way. She did know a lot about magic...  
WHOOSHH!  
Akane's thoughts were interrupted suddenly by a roar of flames  
similar to when the arch-demon appeared. *No! Not another!* She thought  
frantically. Then she saw the color of the magical fires and was confused. The  
flames were...blue?  
*What kind of demon uses _blue_ flame??*  
When the flames died out, she was even more confused.  
*That doesn't look like a demon to me. Almost the opposite in fact...*  
The basis for that thought was the blue aura surrounding the young man  
that had appeared. He was a little taller than Ranma and a little more muscular  
with brown hair and...hazel eyes? He didn't look like any race in particular  
but could probably fit into any without much trouble. He was also handsome  
looking. He was wearing a frayed, white t-shirt and shorts. Hardly what an  
angel would wear. His expression was curiously blank.  
Akane shrugged, why not.  
"Hello? Are you OK?"  
The young man turned his head towards Akane and looked straight through  
her. This was unnerving to say the least. Then he spoke and his voice was as  
empty as his face.  
"Is Malkon here?"  
"Uh, I think he's still at the lake," Akane pointed the direction.  
The face changed and Akane stepped back a pace in surprise. A cold  
rage was shown on that mask and his eyes became ice-blue lights. The young man  
ground out in a now tension-filled voice.  
"Good. Very good."

Chapter Six  
\-----------

Malkon had caused the ground to grab the four martial artists on the  
shore and still pondering what to do with them with all his concentration,  
when something else caught his attention.  
Caught him in the chest actually, driving him back into the lake.  
"What! Aggh! Glub!"  
The arch-demon was thrown into the lake again but was far more prompt  
in returning to the surface this time. That had hurt! *What was that?* He  
wondered. He then realized that it had been the VERY large, flat stone that he  
had been summoned on. That was impossible! No mortal could have thrown that!  
Shouting in anger, Malkon yelled, "WHO THREW THAT! WHO IS OUT THERE?"  
A visible red aura was starting to show around the arch-demon as he prepared  
himself. He absently noted that, since his concentration had failed, the four  
on the beach were free but they were not the problem now.  
Trees were being shattered and blown out of the way by something,  
or rather _someone_, coming towards the lake shore. The group on the lake edge  
dived out of the way just in time as the last few trees between the place  
where the arch-demon had been summoned and the lake were blown away by an  
unseen force.  
The young man Akane had seen appear was standing where the trees once  
were. He was glowing with an aura of his own and appeared MUCH more angry than  
Malkon. He replied to Malkon's shout with an angry, ice-water dipped voice.  
"_I_ threw that stone. Call me Twister."  
Malkon had regained his calm and regarded the young man standing before  
him on the shore. He didn't recall ever meeting a powerful being like this!  
And yet... he looked familiar. He voiced that fact to get more information.  
"I do not recall meeting you, but you _do_ seem to strike a chord in my memory.  
Might I inquire where we met?"  
The man's blue aura blazed at that sentence and he started floating  
straight up until he was level with Malkon.  
"You throw me into the Event to die and you forgot!?!? Forget THIS!"  
Heat fled from the young man while air rushed in to gather near his  
right fist.  
"ARCTIC ICEWIND ATTACK!"  
The fist shot towards Malkon and a compressed blast of freezing air  
screamed towards the arch-demon. Razor-sharp ice shards formed within the  
column of air and had reached a respectable size when the blast hit Malkon.  
"AGGHHH!!!"  
The heat from the arch-demon's aura had stopped a respectable amount  
of the shards from reaching his body. However, some got through and the  
intense cold only heightened the pain inflicted by the ice blades, which melted  
quickly.  
"YOU?? How did you survive?!" Malkon could not believe what he was  
seeing. It was impossible for a mere mortal to have survived the Event, much  
less escape it. The wounds inflicted upon him were painful so he healed them  
with his magic. His power was great so he could afford this but the  
now-powerful mortal, floating above the shore, was an unknown quantity which  
he had judge capabilities on. Who knew what effects the Event had had on  
this...Twister.  
*Better get the next strike in and try to guess his abilities.*  
While he was still relatively calm, Malkon tried to charm the young  
man like he had Akane and Ranma-chan. With eyes glowing, the arch-demon attempted  
to control this potentially useful person.  
"You do not _really_ wish to fight me, do you?"  
"No."  
Malkon relaxed sightly. The spell had...  
"I want to _KILL_ you!!!" Blue light gathered in each of Twister's  
hands and started to form something from the air itself. Raising both hands,  
as if about to throw something, he cried out another attack.  
"DIAMOND DEATH DAGGERS!"  
At those words, Twister threw the now-formed, diamond daggers with  
furious force at the arch-demon. Malkon tried to dodge but the daggers moved  
with him and buried deep into his lower torso. The arch-demon stared in  
disbelief at the crystalline hilts painfully in his body. He slowly removed  
the daggers and examined them in his pain. Suddenly, the force that held them  
together flared in blue flame and burned his hands while the daggers became  
carbon dust.  
"DAMN AND HELLFIRE!" Malkon shouted out loud. He had not been so hurt  
in ten thousand years! Even in his fury the arch-demon was thinking. *The  
mortal did not even _notice_ my attempt to charm him. I would expect that  
kind of resistance from an _arch-demon_, not a mortal! It could be his  
obvious rage but I doubt it... I'll try a more powerful spell after I heal  
myself again. I _cannot_ let this go on. I am starting to weaken after these  
healing spells.*  
After healing himself again, Malkon tried one of his more powerful  
spells. Transformation from a distance. It was much easier with skin contact  
but he had doubts about being able to _get_ that close.  
"This has gone on for too long. I think it is time for a change...,"  
Malkon cast his spell at Twister.  
Twister blinked.  
Shook his head.  
And then glared even harder at the arch-demon.  
Malkon was shocked. *He blinked?? That was it???* He started to become  
afraid but this further resulted in anger. Anger that this impudent mortal  
should be able to shrug off one of his more powerful transformation spells  
so easily. *No more defensiveness! It is time to go on the offensive! No  
mortal will give this much trouble to an arch-demon and LIVE!* With  
that thought, Malkon threw a projectile of his own. A fireball of immense  
perportions.  
Twister icily looked at the fireball coming towards him.  
He was prepared.  
A fist was drawn back again and the massive amount of air he had  
compressed around him gathered around it. With a mighty effort he threw  
his fist forwards.  
"HURRICANE WALL!"  
An almost solid wall of air met with fireball halfway between the  
two combatants. The blast of air had twice as much velocity as the sphere  
of plasma and so, when the fireball detonated against it, the wall of air  
carried the flames ahead of it. Towards Malkon. The magic-tinged flames  
cared not what they burned and so they hungrily feasted upon the arch-demon  
treacherously. The wall of air that hit him a half-second later blew out the  
flame.  
"AGGGHHH! ENOUGH!" Malkon was beyond mere calculating anger now.  
With burns over most of his body and robe charred, he was in a pure, blood-red  
rage. The absolute worst condition to find an arch-demon in.  
Twister looked at Malkon's obvious emotional state and flew towards  
him. It was clear that the time for Malkon to cast spells from a distance  
was over.  
Malkon summoned the remnants of his concentration to call upon his  
Black Sword. It shimmered into reality in his burnt, right hand. He wasted  
no more magic on healing himself. Now it would be a battle of strength.  
With his veneer of logical superiority gone, his true demonic fighting rage  
came to the fore. He had over ten thousand years of fighting experience.  
No limited-lifespan mortal was going to last long against Malkon!  
Watching his opponent approach, he saw that his foe was creating  
something to counter his own sword. With two hands outstretched in front  
of him, another form was coalescing above those hands. When the glow faded,  
Malkon saw that it was another diamond creation. A sword of equal length  
and style to his own but of crystal. A blue glow shone though the clear  
material of it's construction. Grasping it with both hands on the hilt,  
Twister floated above the lake, about ten feet away from Malkon, and waited.  
Malkon growled out, "You may have weakened me _slightly_ mortal  
and I have allowed this to go on as long as it has. But now I have had  
enough. Prepare to die." He looked for a reaction from his opponent but  
received nothing. This angered him beyond belief and he launched himself  
at Twister.

Chapter Seven  
\-------------

Malkon launched himself through the air. "Time to end this fight!"  
The arch-demon shouted this as he took a wide sweep at Twister. Twister  
avoided it by flying backwards just enough so that the Black Sword missed  
him by millimeters.  
Seeing this precise movement, Malkon continued the fight with more  
caution. He attacked in a more accurate and direct manner, and the mortal  
countered with the newly created diamond sword. The two blades shrieked at  
each other when they meet. Blue and red sparks flew from each contact.  
This continued for several minutes with Malkon always on the offensive  
and Twister being defensive.  
While being fustrated at not having scored a single hit yet, Malkon  
wondered at his opponent's reluctance to mount an offensive. *He is good  
enough to block all my attacks and yet refuses to attack _me_. Hmm. In fact,  
he does not appear to know how to use a sword, despite his always blocking  
with it. It is as if he already _knows_ where I will strike next...  
And maybe _that_ is the real truth.* Malkon shuddered at that thought. An  
opponent that knew your own move before you did could maintain an nigh-  
invincible defence if he was quick and strong enough. Twister apparently was.  
*I think it is _very_ fortunate indeed he does not know how to use that sword  
yet.*  
"MOUKO TAKABISHA!"  
"What?! AGHH!" Malkon was blasted towards the center of the lake he and  
Twister had been fighting over. He quickly regained his concentration before  
he dropped into the lake and narrowed his eyes at the shore.  
*So the cursed one wants to play too...*  
Ranma-chan was just lowering her hands as she looked at the effect  
her ki-blast had had on the arch-demon. The anger she had felt at being made  
to feel helpless, and then ignored completely as a minor annoyance, was rapidly  
sinking into hesitation as Ranma-chan saw the lack of results of the attack.  
She had managed to miss that 'Twister' but now the arch-demon was glaring  
at Ranma-chan now.  
*Uh oh...*  
Malkon was interrupted in his dark thoughts by a close by Twister's  
icy voice, "You had the right words, Malkon. But _now_ is the time to say them."  
He started to rise above the arch-demon.  
"Prepare to die."  
The wind picked up around them as Twister's aura grew brighter and  
the sword shone an intense blue. The diamond blade was placed in one hand and  
thrown straight up as Malkon wondered what the mortal was up to.  
One hundred feet high in the air the sword stopped dead. It then  
rotated until it pointed straight down. Twister raised both hands and a  
stream of blue energy burst forth, racing towards the hovering sword.  
Twister shouted out an attack that froze Malkon in shock.  
"TWISTER TORNADO!"  
The energy filled the sword and it started its work. A torus of wind,  
twenty feet in diameter, formed around the sword and rapidly expanded vertically  
towards the ground. Malkon tried to fly away, but from his higher altitude,  
Twister took steps to occupy his time. Pointing a palm in the arch-demon's  
direction, Twister summoned some energy towards his hand and let it gain  
strength there before releasing it.  
"MINDFIRE PULSE!"  
A small, curved ball of blue fire streaked towards Malkon and hit him  
in the back. The burst of fiery pain delayed just long enough for the tornado  
to snatch him into its grip and he was sucked into flying uncontrollably  
around the center of the tornado, unable to concentrate much in the tempest.  
Twister himself was untouched by the winds.  
Seeing Malkon trapped for the moment brought a faint smile to  
Twister's lips momentarily, then he executed his final strike against Malkon.  
Gathering most of his remaining power, saving a bit for escape, Twister  
let loose his energies into the walls of the tornado.  
"MINDFIRE TORNADO ENERGIZE!"  
The blue flame spread along the walls of the tornado, intensifying  
it. This caused water to start being sucked into the fury of Twister's creation  
from the lake. Malkon was further distracted by this gout of water that now  
swirled about him. Before the water reached his altitude, Twister used the  
last of his power to teleport out. He had not used this before because he  
wanted to reveal little about his capabilities to Malkon in the beginning.  
Now, there was no need. A thunderclap signaled his departure and water rushed  
past his former position. When the water reached the sword, the final phase  
of the manouver was triggered. The blue mindfire in the tornado walls rushed  
towards the sword. Malkon briefly thought that his opponent had finally  
over-extended himself when he noticed the lessing of the confusing swirling  
of water.  
That was his last thought for a while.  
The sword absorbed all the mindfire and the light of the diamond sword  
grew to sunlight intensity. It then performed its final function.  
Convert mindfire to heat and direct it straight down.  
This was released in a stream of energy one centimeter in diameter,  
all the way down the _water_-filled tornado. This resulted in converting  
lake-temperature water into ultra-hot plasma. By itself, this would have  
devastated the landscape, but the now-dying tornado and its content of water  
absorbed most of the blast. Malkon was inside all this.  
The result was a tremendous explosion that flung hot water all around  
the lake with the shockwave.

"Yow! Hot! Hot!"  
Ranma and the others danced around, trying to cool off from that blast  
of hot water, from the middle of the lake, where the tornado had been.  
Soun stopped and looked out towards the middle of the lake where the  
incredible, flaming-blue, tornado had been. Shockwaves on the lake's surface  
were still spreading out from the explosion.  
Ranma joined him, "I don't think we'll be seeing that Malkon jerk  
again for some reason."  
Akane gazed out with him, "I hope so." She shivered, still remembering  
Malkon's eyes.  
Happosei sneaked away before anyone could notice he was gone. He didn't  
want anyone blaming him for THIS mess.  
Ranma remembered something and glanced around, "Hey! Where's that  
old fart! HE'S the one who started this mess!"  
Everyone looked around but the old Master had disappeared.  
"Shoot. As long as it's over...what are YOU staring at Pop?" Ranma  
looked in the direction his father's eyes were looking in and froze. Akane  
and Soun noticed this and looked too.  
A weary-looking Twister was standing in the spot where he had first  
shouted out his anger at the demon. His face was back in the blank expression  
Akane had seen on him when she had first seen him. His gaze was focused on  
the lake, just staring.  
The observers looked at each other and wondered what to do. Akane  
thought for a moment and then straightened her shoulders. She started walking  
towards the blank-faced young man. Ranma was surprised but ran up to walk  
with her. *No way am I gonna let her do something stupid.*  
Twister turned to look at the pair when he heard footsteps coming  
towards him. They stopped a pace away from him.  
Akane spoke softly, with a little tremor in her voice, "Are you OK?"  
Twister just stared blankly from one to the other.  
Ranma got impatient, "Yo! You listening to us!?"  
Akane was shocked, "RANMA! He looks like he's in shock! Don't make it  
worse!"  
"He's either dead or too weak for me to sense him." Twister said in  
a dead voice.  
Silence.  
"Well, just who the hell _are_ you buddy?" Ranma aggressively asked him.  
"Ranma!"  
Something flickered across Twister's face and he stared at Ranma.  
"What are you looking at pal?" Ranma was felt a little unnerved  
by the scrutiny.  
Twister suddenly moved towards the lake, with Akane and Ranma behind  
him, wondering what he was doing. When he was by the water and saw Ranma beside  
him, Twister quickly splashed water on Ranma.  
Surprised, Ranma-chan shouted, "What'd you do _that_ for??"  
The blank look faded from Twister's face and was replaced by a more  
human expression and voice. Deep shock.  
"Ranma. Oh jeez. Ranma. I hope I'm dreaming this." After that  
statement, his eyes rolled up and Akane and Ranma-chan caught him as he went  
limp in a faint.  
Ranma-chan shook her head.  
"Oh great. This is just perfect."

A hand splashed out of the water of the lake and gripped an old  
tree root. Its twin joined it and together they dragged the body they shared  
out of the lake.  
Malkon was utterly exhausted.  
*Never...have I...been so...completely...defeated.* He had barely  
managed to shield himself from that point-blank explosion in the tornado.  
Malkon's magic was almost totally drained from the strain of that last task.  
*He was absolutely new to his power and yet he still defeated me.* Malkon  
tiredly pondered that fact.  
The arch-demon thought about killing a few locals in the area but  
dismissed that as foolhardy. *If he can sense my aura, then building my  
strength in this area would only draw him to me. I do not think I would  
survive a second encounter like that. I must wait until I am fully healed  
and then leave. When I am far enough away, _then_ I can build up my  
magical strength.* Malkon thought about that plan and thought it the best  
available option.  
Turning his mind to that of his recent opponent Malkon found not  
rage but actually intellectual curiousity, *The mortal survived the Event.*  
He still marvelled at it, *A very unlikely possibility, yet he did. Not  
without its effects on him though... Very painful ones at that.* Malkon  
remembered something about Twister's manner during the fight, *He did not  
seem to be the same person while we were fighting. A cold, blind rage was  
there that was not present before I had thrown him into the Event... That is  
it! His rage at me must have allowed him to survive long enough in the Event  
to get out alive. His mind must have retreated into itself for protection  
leaving only a purposeful rage against me to shield him. It must have still  
been in place when he fought me. No restrictions. No morals. All his new power  
against the enemy. Me.* With a tried smile Malkon continued the thought.  
*When his true mind comes back he will likely not remember much of what  
he did to me. He will need to practice. That gives me more time than I  
thought.*  
Malkon further continued that theory, *Without a normal personality  
and only rage in his mind, his mind was likely operating at a highly logical  
level. That is probably how he was able to attack me with the methods he  
used.* He thought about the diamond weapons Twister had used. *As an example,  
the diamond creations he made are easily obtainable from the air. A very  
logical decision. Likely made by sensing his own abilities.* Malkon chuckled.  
*That logical mind may affect him when he regains his normal personality.*  
A new thought struck him.  
*I sensed _no_ magic upon him. Only psionic power. That is odd.  
The Event contained both Mind and Magic power yet the magic was not there.  
It HAD to have given him equal amounts of _both_ kinds of power. So where  
is it? Or is it merely inaccessible now? How could he access it then?*  
This brought a new thought. *Yes. That could work. The rage would be  
useless that way and make him vulnerable in the process.* Malkon slowly smiled.  
*And _that_ decides my first destination.*  
He laughed softly.

Chapter Eight  
\-------------

Nabiki was impatiently waiting for the party to come back home. She  
didn't like to admit this to herself but she was worried.  
*How long are they going to be? It's two am. What could be keeping  
them?* Hmp. "Likely chasing Happosei all over the forest." She said aloud.  
"I wish." A familiar voice said behind her.  
Nabiki turned around and saw a sorry sight indeed. Genma-panda(who had  
changed to make carring his cargo easier), Soun, Akane, and Ranma-chan were  
all wet and their clothes were muddy and shredded. She also saw something on  
Genma-panda's shoulder.  
"HEL-lo there! Who's that?"  
Genma-panda gently laid the young man on the floor and Nabiki got a  
closer look at him. No one she knew and likely not for a lack of trying.  
"I almost expected Ryouga there. Who's the hunk?"  
Ranma-chan sat on the floor along with everybody else. "Beats me.  
That old fool Happosei messed up his summoning after I hit him on the head  
with a rock and got not just an ordinary demon but an arch-demon. _Then_,  
he tricked the old fart into releasing him." Nabiki paled slightly. Ranma-chan  
nodded. "Exactly. We were in deep trouble. Then apparently, from what Akane  
saw, the spell brought another guy along with the demon." She nodded in the  
direction of the unconscious young man. "Him. I guess he had a bone to  
pick with this arch-demon creep, Malkon, and let the demon know it by throwing  
a _very_ large stone at him. Before they really started going at it, he said  
his name was Twister. I guess that Malkon creep couldn't seem to affect him  
directly with any spells. After that they got close and personal. Malkon  
still couldn't touch him and this Twister seemed to be about the same. Then..."  
Ranma-chan glanced uneasily at the still form again. "This guy lived up to his  
name and MADE a small tornado. It sucked up Malkon and soon after it burst  
into blue flame and exploded. Doused us all in hot water. We thought they  
both bit it but then we saw this guy standing on the shore."  
Ranma-chan looked puzzled at this point. "When me and Akane went up to  
him, he heard my name, splashed water on me, saw the change and fainted. Almost  
like he expected it but didn't believe it. Weird. He looked really beat."  
Ranma-chan got up. "And me too. I'm gonna take a hot bath and go to bed.  
I'm exhausted."  
Akane stood up angrily, "Ranma! At least help us decide what to do with  
him!"  
"What's to decide? Put him in the second guest room and wait till he  
gets up and ask him yourself." Ranma-chan called back as she quickly walked  
towards the bathing room.  
"Ranma! You get back here!" Akane ran after the fleeing figure.  
Nabiki sighed. "Well, I think Ranma has the right idea. We can't  
really decide anything until we know who, or _what_, he is." She paused.  
"This...Malkon. Is he still around?"  
Soun and Genma looked uncertain. Soun replied, "We're not sure  
daughter. The final blast was immense but... We don't really know."  
"That's the best reason I've heard to keep this guy around.  
Protection. In case the demon did survive." Nabiki looked determined. "I do  
_not_ care to become the main course for a demon."  
The two fathers(one a panda) sighed. Soun stood up, "Very well. Help  
me with him Saotome." They went over to the young man, lifted him up, and went  
upstairs to the extra guest room.  
Nabiki sat a moment in silence then sighed and went to bed. *This  
house just gets weirder every day....*

Two days passed, and the visitor slept soundly all the while. Not even  
Ranma and Akane's periodic arguing woke him up. On Saturday, when Nabiki  
felt awake enough, she decided to go check up on him.  
"Kasumi. I'm going to go check on our guest."  
Kasumi had been told the tale the day after the visitor arrived but  
accepted it as she always did.  
"Ok, Nabiki. Be careful not to wake him up." She smiled.  
"He sleeps though the two 'Lovebird's' arguments and you think _I'm_  
going to wake him up?" Nabiki said sarcastically.  
Kasumi smiled again, "True."  
After reaching the guest room, Nabiki cautiously opened the door and  
stepped inside. The guest, *Or I should call him Twister,* was still sleeping  
though his exhaustion seemed to have passed. Looking over the still form, using  
sunlight from a window, Nabiki commented to herself, *Nice. Practically  
no fat on him. Wonder what his secret is.* Having satisfied her curiousity,  
Nabiki walked back towards the door and stepped on a noisy board. She didn't  
think much about it until she heard a groan behind her. She quickly turned  
back around.  
With eyes shut closed from the sunlight, "Uhhh, lose the lights  
already," Twister moaned, still half-asleep.  
Nabiki debated possible responses, then replied, "Sorry handsome,  
time to rise and shine."  
Twister opened his eyes, looked at this pretty young woman standing  
above him, then shut his eyes again.  
Pause.  
Then his eyes shot wide open and he propped himself up with his  
arms rapidly. "What...??? Who are you? Where am I?" Twister looked around  
wildly.  
Using soothing tones, Nabiki replied, "Calm down. Calm down. Do _you_  
remember how you got here?"  
Still looking a little wild, Twister thought about it a moment. "Uh,  
not really. I'm not sure if I'm still dreaming or not and I seem to have a vague  
memory of fighting someone. I think. Not much else."  
Nabiki sat down close to him. Noticing this made him a little nervous,  
she amusedly smiled, "Why don't you tell me what you do remember, and why you  
think you are dreaming."  
"Um. Sure." Looking a little apprehensive he continued, "By the way,  
what's your name?" He seemed to dread the answer.  
"Nabiki Tendo." He groaned. "It's not _that_ bad a name" She replied  
crossly.  
Twister sighed, "Let me tell you my story first and you may understand  
my reaction."  
Nabiki nodded. "Okay."  
Taking a deep breath, Twister started, "Well it's like this..."

Half an hour later, Twister finished his explanation.  
Nabiki looked thoughtful. "So in _your_ universe, this one is a comic  
book? Hm. Well, I guess it could happen." Looking at Twister's expression,  
she amended, "Ok. Ok. It _did_ happen. And your memory goes all fuzzy after  
you hit this Event thing."  
He nodded, "Yeah, and I have a feeling I don't _want_ to remember.  
The fight I remember a little bit more but it was like someone else was  
driving the bus if you get my drift. I remember what I did, but how I did  
it...no idea."  
Nabiki smiled, "Well, practice a bit handsome and you may remember."  
Twister frowned, "Why do you keep calling me that? I know I'm not  
the worst looking guy around but I've never thought myself as that."  
She looked startled, "You must have a pretty low opinion of yourself  
then, or maybe..."  
"What?"  
"I think you should see a mirror and tell me if I'm right." Nabiki  
walked over to the room's desk and found a hand mirror. She walked back and  
gave him the mirror.  
Twister glanced at the mirror and then froze in shock.  
"I gather that Event thing did a little more than give you some  
fancy tricks." Nabiki smirked.  
Twister tore his eyes from the mirror and finally registered the  
changes done to his body. "Holy... Instant fitness by cosmic forces. I wouldn't  
recommend it to your friends though." He faintly said. *And my face has....  
_changed_.*  
Nabiki snorted. "Right. Being tossed by an arch-demon into something  
that has apparently existed since the dawn of time is definitely not an  
attractive tourist attraction." She contemplated something and made a decision,  
"Feel up to some breakfast? I gather you won't be used to most of it but  
anything made by my sister should appeal to you."  
Twister looked alarmed. "No insult intended but I hope you mean Kasumi  
and not Akane."  
Nabiki chuckled at that. "Don't worry, it's Kasumi. I think I believe  
your story quite a bit more if you know about _that_." 

Chapter Nine  
\------------

Ranma and Genma were practicing as usual in the pond area. Jumping  
at each other over the small body of water and each trying to dunk the other  
into it. Soun was sitting at the table and reading his paper. Kasumi was  
busily making breakfast and Akane was still jogging around the block.  
"Better put another place at the table Kasumi." Nabiki called from  
the stairs.  
The two practicing outside were too busy to hear this but Kasumi looked  
out of the kitchen and Soun started at the table. Soun and Kasumi saw Nabiki  
at the base of the stairs making hand motions at a figure on the top of the  
stairs. Finally, the figure came down and Soun started again. Instead of the  
cold-faced warrior he had seen at the lake, there was a lean, muscular, young  
man, about a little taller than Ranma, dressed in a pair of Ranma's shirt and  
pants, nervously coming down the stairs. Soun's fears of letting the formidable  
being he had seen fighting the arch-demon stay here vanished. This was not the  
actions of an evil, experienced person.  
Kasumi greeted him, "Hello there. Well, I guess you're right Nabiki.  
I'd better make room for our handsome guest at the table." She smiled.  
Twister blushed as Nabiki chuckled.  
Soun stood up and greeted the young man, "You are welcome at the  
Tendo home for as long as you wish. I suspect you may be a little disoriented.  
Soun smiled. "Well, I hope we can help you with that."  
Twister smiled back, "Thank you, Mr. Tendo. I suspect you're right."  
Nabiki grabbed his arm and took him to the back. "We'd better show  
you to these two or you may be attacked at breakfast. I also want to see Ranma's  
reaction. This should be priceless."  
Twister glanced at the girl dragging him along, "You're sadistic, you  
do know that do you?"  
"And I love every minute of it." She smirked.  
When they reached the pond area, Nabiki waited until Genma and Ranma  
had launched themselves at each other again. "Ranma! Guess who's up in the  
land of the living!"  
Ranma looked in Nabiki's direction and saw Twister. In his clothing  
as well. Nabiki and Twister saw his face starting to show surprise when the  
forgotten Genma, still focused on Ranma, kicked his son into the pond.  
Nabiki showed the victory sign.  
"Perfect!" She crowed as Twister smiled and shook his head.  
Ranma-chan's head came out of the water and glared at Nabiki, "Thanks  
a lot, Nabiki."  
"My pleasure Ranma." Ignoring the sarcasm, she continued, "I gather  
you remember our guest?"  
"How do you do, Ranma. Name's Twister." He extended his hand to help  
her out of the water.  
Ranma-chan ignored the offered hand and jumped out of the pond. "Hi.  
Sorry about this." She glared at Nabiki who walked back into the house,  
"I'm not exactly ready for this."  
Twister smiled slightly, "So I noticed. _That_ is going to take a while  
to get used to." Pointing at Ranma-chan's obvious condition.  
"Tell me about it. By the way, just why are you wearing _my_ clothes?"  
Nabiki called from sitting by the table, "Well what he _had_ wasn't  
very presentable so I took the liberty of borrowing a few of your things since  
you're the only one here whose clothing would fit. I didn't think you'd mind,"  
She smiled sweetly, "_Lending_ him some things to wear."  
Ranma-chan sighed with the air of one who had no choice in the matter,  
not with Nabiki anyway, "Oh alright."  
Twister chuckled after a glance in Nabiki's direction, "What's she  
got on _you_?"  
Nabiki glared, "Twister..."  
He held his hands up in surrender, "Just kidding."  
At that moment, Akane jogged in and saw Twister with a wet Ranma-chan  
beside him. She said angrily, "Ranma! Fighting with our guest?"  
Ranma-chan started to say something in reply but Twister beat her  
to it, "Actually, it was with Nabiki. She won."  
Akane's face turned comical and Ranma-chan laughed at her. This got  
her angry again and started chasing Ranma-chan. "What are you laughing at  
you pervert!" Ranma-chan's reply was lost as they ran into the house.  
Twister came to the table, sat by Nabiki, and turned his head to  
her, "Normal day?"  
"Normal day."

Finally, everyone was at the table for breakfast. Twister hadn't  
realized how hungry he was and devoured as much as Genma did.  
Kasumi replied to his comment, "Well, you did have a fight and slept  
for two days after all." This made sense to everyone as Kasumi's comments  
usually did.  
After everyone was done, Nabiki got Twister to tell his story again.  
This was met with some scepticism at first but after Twister started telling  
everyone what he had read and watched, with some embarrassing moments for some,  
they quickly believed him and told him to please stop. Nabiki chuckled at that.  
Ranma was a little disbelieving. "So you don't remember most of your  
fight?"  
Twister nodded, "Yeah. I do remember some of what I did but not  
_how_ I did it."  
Akane spoke up, "Maybe if you practice, you'll be able to do it  
normally."  
"Hmm. Yes, I guess I'd better. Once my strength is back I think I'll  
basically have to." Twister shuddered. "The level of power I showed tells me  
I have to be very careful or I might damage something accidentally. I don't  
care much for that idea." He looked at his hands, "My strength one of those.  
I've bent some metal without noticing it at first. I'm just not used to this  
level of strength yet."  
Nabiki patted him on the leg, "Don't worry. You'll get the hang of  
it."  
"I hope so." He sighed contentedly. "And thank _you_ Kasumi for a  
wonderful meal. I really feel human now."  
"Thank you." She smiled as she started taking away the dishes.  
"Do you want..."  
THUMP!! An angry figure stormed in from outside.  
"RANMA! I CHALLENGE YOU!" The person shouted.  
Ranma sighed and stood up, "Ryouga. Still don't know how to announce  
your challenges quietly yet?"  
"Do not mock me!" Ryouga glared at Ranma, "Now you die!"  
Ryouga launched a mighty fist at Ranma, who would have dodged easily,  
had not someone interposed himself and caught the hand with one of his own.  
Ryouga stared in disbelief at his trapped hand. The person was  
unfamiliar to him but to have stopped his blow meant that he was strong indeed.  
Twister spoke reasonably to Ryouga, "Now I don't want to belittle  
Ranma's fighting abilities by intervining, I'm quite sure he's capable of  
handling himself. But, even as a stranger here, I do believe it would be  
considered polite to fight _outside_?" He nodded his head towards the pond.  
Ryouga got angry with this person who had interfered his vengeance  
upon his rival for Akane's affections. He shouted at Twister, showing his  
pointed teeth. "Who are _you_ to tell Ryouga Hibiki what to do!"  
A change came over the stranger when he saw the pointed teeth of  
Ryouga. His face changed to an icy mask of rage and the eyes glowed a faint  
blue. Ryouga stared at this frightening change. Wind gathered around Twister's  
free right hand. Everyone saw the change, realized what it meant, and ran for  
cover.  
"HURRICANE BLAST!"  
The right fist rocketed towards a stunned Ryouga and caused the  
compressed air blast him to create a Ryouga-hole through the wall in the  
direction of the pond. The people who had seen Twister's power before, noticed  
this blast was a lot weaker than the stronger 'wall' version they had seen.  
Likely due to Twister's weakened condition.  
After the blast, Twister shook himself out of his rage-mask and  
stared at the new hole in the wall. "Oops." He said with some shock.  
Nabiki got up and patted him on the shoulder. "Don't worry about  
it. That happens all the time." Her face became concerned, "What happened  
anyway?"  
Twister shook his head, "An almost instinctive reaction, I think.  
When I saw Ryouga's pointed teeth, it reminded me of Malkon." He shuddered.  
"You saw what happened after that. Fortunately, I knew that was Ryouga's  
natural condition but I couldn't stop most of the blast. Once he was gone,  
I was able to break out of it." He looked concerned, "I hope I didn't  
hurt him much."  
Ranma walked over to the hole nonchalantly, "I wouldn't worry about  
Ryouga. He's much too hard-headed for this to stop him for long." He smirked.  
Akane glared at him. "Ranma! He might be hurt! We'd better go  
see if he's ok." She walked through the new Ryouga-hole outside.  
Twister walked up to Ranma and whispered to him, "I think we'd better  
too. I shot him in the direction of the pond."  
Ranma looked irritated, "Why should that...," Then he remembered.  
"Right." He looked uncertainly at Twister. "You think you can control that...  
'reaction'?"  
Twister thought about it, "I think so. I know what to expect now."  
"Better hurry to cover for the idiot again then." Ranma followed  
Akane's path outside without making sure Twister came along.  
*What's with him?* Twister wondered as he quickly followed Ranma.

Chapter Ten  
\-----------

Out by the pond, Twister and Ranma's fears were confirmed. Akane  
was holding a little black pig in her arms and was still looking for Ryouga.  
"Finally came out?" Akane looked around. "I can't seem to find Ryouga  
anywhere."  
Ranma and Twister exchanged knowing looks. Ranma said, "You know  
how bad his sense of direction is, Akane. I bet the jerk is wandering around  
lost with a headache right now." He casually looked at the pig. "I see P-Chan's  
finally found his way back."  
Akane smiled, "Yes, I found him just getting out of the pond. There  
was a bump on his head. Poor thing must have hit a rock when he fell in.  
He's fainted, the poor thing."  
Twister looked faintly embarrassed but asked anyway, "Do you want me  
to hold him while you look for Ryouga outside?" Akane thought about then  
smiled and nodded. "Ranma and I will put him in your room."  
Ranma looked angry but stifled it when Akane glared at him, "Now Ranma,  
don't pick on P-Chan while I'm gone." She smiled at P-Chan and went outside.  
Ranma was about to say something but Twister stopped him.  
"The room."  
Ranma paused, debated something to himself, and then nodded his  
affirmative.  
The two walked to Akane's room and closed the door. Twister put  
P-Chan on the bed and tried to wake him up.  
Twister gently shook the still form. "Ryouga. Wake up."  
P-Chan's eyes flickered, then snapped wide open at the sound of his  
true name.  
Ranma smiled widely. "Well, that was a brief challenge Ryouga. Too  
bad you had to go in a hurry." He smirked.  
The pig squealed loudly and launched himself at Ranma. Ranma ducked  
and the pig bounced off the wall behind him. P-Chan started acting like a crazed  
rubber ball, bouncing from wall to wall trying to hit Ranma, who just dodged  
with a smile on his face.  
Twister let this go for a half minute before deciding enough was enough.  
He waited for the right time and then, with his newly heightened speed and  
reflexes, caught P-Chan in mid-air. This startled the pig enough for him  
to get a firm grip on P-Chan.  
Putting P-Chan's eyes level with his own, Twister calmly but forcefully  
said, "Settle down already! I _am_ sorry for blasting you into the pond.  
I didn't expect that reaction when I saw your teeth as you shouted at me."  
Putting the pig on the bed again and making sure he wouldn't blast off again,  
Twister continued, "I'll tell you who I am while we wait for Akane to come  
back." He noticed Ranma's scowl and P-Chan's ears perk up and sighed,  
"It will occupy the time with something else besides pig ping-pong anyway..."

When Akane finally arrived, Twister had just finished his story.  
She smiled, noticing P-Chan's awake condition, "I see you've behaved  
yourself Ranma."  
Ranma shifted slightly. Ryouga had been too busy listening to Twister's  
story for anything to happen. Twister chuckled.  
"P-Chan _was_ a little excited when he woke up. Likely from the shock  
of the blow." Ranma chuckled quietly at this truth, Twister ignored him. "But  
we calmed him down soon enough." Akane looked around and saw the slightly  
messed up room. "He sure is energetic for such a little pig."  
P-Chan snorted.  
Akane smiled again. "Sorry for any trouble he caused."  
"My pleasure. It gave us an opportunity to get to know one another."  
Twister showed a secretive smile at P-Chan. "And when _not_ to fight."  
P-Chan snorted again before Akane picked him up. He blushed.  
Twister stood up and Ranma followed suit. "Well, we'll let you two  
exchange greetings in private." Twister grabbed Ranma's arm and started  
dragging him along. "I want Ranma to help me judge how much I've changed.  
Come _on_ Ranma." Akane closed her door when they left, Ranma unwilling  
to leave but Twister insisting.  
Twister stopped dragging Ranma and stared at the door. "Quote from  
a famous poet: 'Lord, what fools these mortals be'." He turned to Ranma.  
"How _long_ has he gotten away with that again?" He said disbelievingly.  
Ranma gritted out, "Almost since he got here."  
Sigh. "I knew that. It's quite another thing to see it though."  
Ranma glared at the door then turned away. "Well, we might as well do  
like you suggested and test you."  
Twister nodded, "Sure." As they walked away, he thought out loud,  
"I hope he realizes that if she ever finds out on her own there _will_ be  
Hell to pay."  
Smiling grimly, Ranma replied, "I hope he doesn't."  
Twister chuckled, while shaking his head, as they went to the training  
room.

Dressed in practice gi's, Ranma assumed a fighting pose while  
Twister just stood there.  
Twister was a little nervous, "Did I mention I've never studied  
martial arts?"  
Ranma snorted disbelievingly, "A little late to be saying that isn't  
it? Besides, I saw how you caught Ryouga, that took impressive reflexes just to  
grab him while moving that fast."  
Still nervous, Twister said, "Well, I wasn't sure _I_ could until  
I did. The Event altered more than I thought."  
"Well, just how much is what we're gonna find out now. Since you don't  
know anything right now, just try dodging my attacks."  
Calming himself, Twister nodded his affirmative.  
Ranma launched a slow punch first, which Twister dodged easily. Seeing  
this, Ranma slowly speeded up his punches and then kicks. Twister started  
having trouble dodging Ranma's blows when Ranma was approaching his fastest  
speed. *How fast _is_ he?* Ranma thought with disbelief, *I think his only  
problem is trying to decide where I'm gonna strike next...* When Ranma was  
going his fastest, he started getting a few punches and kicks in. *Damn! This  
guy is _good_! And he's just being _defensive_!?* Almost when he was about to  
stop and call a break, he saw a faint blue aura start shining around Twister  
who suddenly got a lot better at dodging the blows coming at him. Now only  
rarely could Ranma get a hit, and those lucky. He stopped attacking.  
The faint blue aura around Twister slowly faded away.  
After going over to the wall and grabbing two towels, Ranma threw one  
at Twister and wiped his forehead.  
"Hmp. I wouldn't worry about not knowing martial arts. That musta been  
some number that Event did on you." He frowned at Twister, "But what did you  
do at the end? I saw that blue aura and you really improved then."  
Twister was wiping his forehead and looking thoughtful, "When you  
really started hitting me more often I was wondering how I managed to avoid  
Malkon hitting me. I concentrated more on trying to speed up and guessing  
more accurately where you were trying to hit." He paused. "I felt something  
then, like a soothing wave, and I started getting ideas of where your hits  
were _going_ to be. I started moving faster too. It felt really weird."  
Contemplating this, Ranma offered an opinion, "I think you were doing  
pretty good until the point when I saw that blue glow around you. Then you  
used that power of yours to enhance yourself." Ranma's brow wrinkled, "But  
that do you mean _going_ to be? Could you read my mind?" Ranma didn't like  
that idea much.  
Twister started, then started thinking about that. After a few seconds,  
he shook his head, "No, that wasn't it. But there is another possibility."  
Ranma raised an eyebrow, "There is something called prescience, or rather,  
future-sight. I could have looked _ahead_ a little in time and accurately  
choose _which_ path the future, or more precisely, your fist, was going to  
take." He shook his head, "That's _my_ best guess. It would be more accurate  
the more power I put into it. That's way you still got hits on me. Ow."  
Ranma noticed the bruises on Twister's body. "That's gonna hurt in  
the morning. You should've told me to stop earlier."  
Shaking his head, Twister replied, "I needed to know." An idea crossed  
his mind, "Hmm. Maybe that might work..."  
Puzzled, Ranma asked, "What?"  
"Did you see how Malkon Healed himself after I hit him the first few  
times before he stopped doing it?"  
"Yeah...but what...?" Light dawned and Ranma's eyes widened. "You  
think _you_ can do that?"  
"Well if I can't at least I tried."  
"And hurt a lot less if it works." Ranma snorted.  
"True."  
Focusing on the bruised parts of his body, Twister tried to will his  
body to heal faster. At first nothing happened, then when he concentrated more,  
Ranma exclaimed with some startlement that the bruises were slowly fading away.  
Excited by this, Twister tried to feel that wave he described to Ranma again.  
After a few seconds, he found it. His body flashed in a blue aura that went as  
soon as it came. Startled and feeling a little tired, he opened his eyes as  
his concentration was broken. The bruises were gone.  
"That was weird." Ranma looked at Twister's bruise-free body. "Those  
bruises were healing fast and were halfway gone when you flashed blue. They were  
gone along with light from your aura after that."  
Ruefully, Twister replied, "I got so excited that it was working that  
I tried to feel that wave again. I succeeded. Unfortunately, it wore me out  
a bit when I Healed with it." He stretched his arms and grinned, "The good side  
is that I'll wake easy tomorrow." He looked thoughtful, "I wonder if I can do  
it to others."  
Ranma didn't look too pleased for some reason, "Well, _I_ certainly  
won't need you to do that for me." He walked out of the room before a surprised  
Twister could say anything.  
Brow wrinkled in puzzlement, Twister wondered at Ranma's attitude.  
*Did I do something wrong?*

Chapter Eleven  
\--------------

Twister was returning from a bath. It was done a little differently  
here than what he was used to but he had managed.  
Nabiki spied him entering the guest room. "Hi there! Have fun with  
Ranma?"  
He nodded at Nabiki, "Sort of. I found out a few new things too."  
When Nabiki inquired what that meant, he explained about the Healing  
he had done to himself, the enhancement of his body, and the possibility of  
future-sight.  
Twister explained further on that, "I don't think the future is fixed  
but has a infinity of possible paths. This ability likely finds the most likely  
path it will take at the time and tells me it by feeling."  
Nabiki was _most_ intrigued by this. "Could you look at a few stock  
market reports for me?" She smiled attractively.  
Amused, Twister shook his head, "I don't think I'm _that_ good yet."  
He smiled at her, "Nice try though."  
She sighed, "Can't blame a girl for trying." Nabiki remembered the  
story about his fight with Malkon. "Don't you have more abilities than that?  
I recall the others mentioning you blowing away trees using nothing at all.  
I also recall they said you _flew_."  
Startled, Twister stared at Nabiki. "You're right. I'd been avoiding  
thinking about that fight but I do recall doing that. Guess I'll have to  
try those things as well today. Hmm. Telekinesis and levitation is what you've  
described. Those _would_ explain most of the things I did in that fight."  
He snapped his fingers, "There was also another thing and the others couldn't  
have seen that since I was in the tornado. I teleported." He grimaced. "That  
makes _three_ more things to practice. Great."  
Nabiki's eyes shone. "Telekinesis, levitation, and teleportation. How  
fascinating. Mind if I make a few suggestions?" She smiled with a gleam in her  
eye.  
*Uh oh.* Twister thought nervously, aloud he said, "What did you have  
in mind? I've never done those things before. My control and strength are  
unknown." *With _her_ reputation,* Twister thought, *I'm not sure if I'm going  
to like this.*  
Smiling, she replied, "Let's just wait for a bit while you practice on  
your own. Then, we'll try my ideas."  
*I have a breather, there is a Lord.* As Nabiki left, he wondered why  
he was letting her do this to him, *Twister, you've never had much experience  
with girls. And Nabiki is _definitely_ going to take advantage of that fact.  
Great. Maybe I can lessen the storm when it comes.* Seeing Nabiki's departing  
figure, he amended, *Maybe not.*

After lunch, Twister went out to the pond area to practice.  
As he sat down, a bout of homesickness hit him. *Ah, shoot. I wonder  
what Mom did when she found out I'm gone.* Twister thought about it a bit  
and shook his head a little. *I can't _do_ anything about it right now, even  
if I wanted to. The Void is an unknown to me and I can't even imagine trying  
to cross it without a _lot_ of time and effort. If I do that, then I might  
as well not try since I think Mom might be long gone by _that_ time.* Eyes  
brightening, Twister thought of something. *Unless the Void makes it possible  
to return at the exact same time I left...which may be possible since Time  
seemed to be pretty unstable in the Void and universes likely have their own  
separate Times... Gah! I won't be able to find out for a while, if ever.  
Hopefully, the latter will be true. I'd better just try to survive right  
now.*  
With that cheering thought, Twister started practicing, *I guess  
I'll try telekinesis first. That's a long range power.* He looked around the  
yard and spied a small rock. *Target lock.* Twister amusedly thought to  
himself. Trying something easy, he just tried to get it to jump up a little.  
Not knowing how much effort he needed to use, Twister tried going all out.  
Concentrating hard, he focused on the rock and willed it to _jump_!  
WHOOM!  
Ranma and Akane heard the boom and ran to see what happened.  
Sitting down and staring at a now vacant spot they saw Twister.  
Ranma asked him, "What the heck was that?"  
Still staring, Twister replied, "I was trying to make a rock jump  
straight up with my mind."  
"What happened to it?" Akane searched the ground.  
"Overkill."  
Now Ranma was staring. "That was the rock? You're kidding."  
"And going how much past Mach 1 I don't know." Rubbing his temples,  
Twister stood up. "I think I'd better concentrate a lot less and with either  
softer or larger things."  
Ranma was smirking, "How about P-Chan?"  
"Ranma!" Akane swung her fist at Ranma but he ducked away. She then  
proceeded to try to run Ranma into the ground, fortunately for Ranma he had  
lots of experience running.  
Chuckling at the sight, Twister turned back to practice. *Well _that_  
was a little too effective.* He mused. *Let's try something...softer. I've  
been using air often. That will be a better start. I hope.* This time he  
started with just a gentle suggestion instead of a command. *Whirl* He thought,  
at the air in front of him. *Go in circles.*  
Twister could feel the air starting to rotate in front of him. Dust from  
the ground made the small tornado visible to his eyes. It was small but that  
was good for a first time. About two feet tall and a finger length in diameter.  
It looked cute. *Living up to my new name anyway. I think I'll leave my name  
like that. I've changed too much for my old name to fit.* Feeling sad for  
a moment he sighed, *At least I've found friends here.* Hearing Akane and Ranma  
in the background lightened his spirits.  
Bringing his attention back to the mini-tornado, he noticed it had  
wandered over to the pond. Its suction was just enough to pull water into  
it.  
*Hmm. Solid. Gas. Time for liquid.*  
Twister let his attention move from the mini-tornado to the water  
now contained within it and told it to stay where it was.  
The mini-tornado dissipated.  
The water fell.  
He stared.  
*Say what?! Now that's odd. Why did _that_ not work?* Walking over to  
the pond and bending over, he scooped some water with his hands.  
*Let's try that again.* He gently told the water in his hands to  
form into a ball.  
Nothing.  
Trying harder this time he attempted it again. Not a shimmer. Twister  
was fustrated. *What is going _on_ here? I can do air and rocks but not  
water??* He headed towards the kitchen as he dumped the pond water.  
*Let's see if it's all liquids.*

Kasumi looked up as Twister walked into the kitchen and smiled.  
"Hello Twister. Looking for a snack?"  
"Actually, no. Looking for confirmation of a theory is more accurate."  
Kasumi looked puzzled.  
"Do you mind if I borrow some vegetable oil? I'll explain in a second."  
Still looking puzzled, Kasumi complied and poured some oil into a bowl.  
Putting the bottle away she handed the bowl of oil to Twister.  
"Great. Just be patient a little longer and I'll explain." He proceeded  
to stare slightly at the oil in the bowl.  
This confused Kasumi even more. *What is he doing?* She was surprised  
when she saw the oil move. It shook a bit then rushed towards the center of the  
bowl and formed a sphere of oil. Kasumi was wide-eyed with wonder and felt a  
little sorrow when the ball quickly pooled out to fill the bowl again.  
Twister looked up at Kasumi and smiled, "I don't know if I should  
happy or fustrated."  
"Why is that?"  
Twister explained his inability to move water.  
Kasumi wondered, "All water or just liquid water?"  
"Next experiment," Twister grinned. "Ice cubes!"  
Kasumi was wondering if her kitchen was going to be converted into  
a laboratory.  
Seeing her face, Twister grinned again, "Don't worry. This is the last  
thing I need." Remembering the rock, he continued, "And I'll do this one  
outside."  
Kasumi's relieved expression threatened to leave him helpless with  
laughter.

*Well that settles that,* mused Twister as he finally got the  
knack of getting things to just float in mid-air. The four remaining ice  
cubes floated in front of him. *I can effect pretty much everything to  
some degree except liquid water for some odd reason.* Idly, he moved the  
cubes into a square formation and rotated it. *I'm picking up on this stuff  
pretty quickly. I wonder if the Event effected my mind in any way.* He slapped  
his head, *Of course it did. How would I be able to do _this_,* he sped up  
the cubes rotation, *if it hadn't?*  
He noticed the cubes melting. *Hm. Maybe I can save my test subjects.*  
He willed the cubes to "cool off". The melt-off froze on the ice. *Two points!  
It worked! Now...termination of testing.* Twister willed the ice to heat up. A  
little too forcefully. The cubes instantly became hot water, which he had  
no control over. Which then proceeded to spatter all over his legs.  
Owch.  
Kasumi's voice called out, "Dinner!"  
Twister looked at the sky, *Hm, lost track of time.*  
Walking over to the table from outside he saw that Ranma, Genma and  
Soun had already made it ahead of him. *Nach,* he smiled inwardly.  
He had just sat down when Akane and Nabiki came to sit. Twister grinned.  
"Ah, the runners-up. Too bad. First, second and third place has already been  
taken." Glares from the guys and smiles from the girls.  
"Kidding! Kidding!" He waved his arms in surrender.  
Genma stiffly said, "A martial artist has to keep his strength up."  
Evidently, this topic of discussion had cropped up before.  
Twister sighed, "What does a guy have to do to get some yucks around  
here?"  
Nabiki smiled, "You _could_ go to the butcher..."  
"Aggh! Yucks! Not ducks!" Twister dramatically put his hand over his  
heart. "I hath been vanquished by yon fair lady's wit!"  
That got a few chuckles around the table.  
"But I see that mine host desires to, how you say, 'dig in'. Thus,  
I shall spare thee of mine agony of defeat."  
Laughter broke out and Twister smiled in victory as they started to  
eat.  
Halfway though the meal, Ranma sourly asked how the practice was going.  
"Well...after the 'rock'et launch." Groans from Akane and Ranma.  
"Sorry. Apparently, I hit my funny bone today. ANYway, I found out that  
I can't touch liquid water for some reason. Everything else I tried seemed  
to work."  
Soun asked, "Can you demonstrate?"  
"Um, sure. Let's see..." Looking down at his now-empty bowl for rice  
he decided on that. Using a little thought, the bowl floated up and started  
around the table looking like it was on a roller-coaster ride. When it came  
back to his spot he put it back where he got it from.  
Nabiki smiled, "Neat."  
Twister looked embarrassed, "I've mostly been working on control since  
I tried the 'rock'et." Looking thoughtful, "I wonder where it came down...  
I also can heat up or cool down objects. How fast depends on material and the  
force I use, I think. Liquid water is impossible. Ice however is not and  
likely steam as well."  
Looking at Twister, Genma said, "Impressive for the first day."  
"Yeah." Twister frowned, "Either I'm learning darn quick or  
this is easier than it looks." After a moment, he said, "I think it is  
because I've been generalizing." Looking at the confused faces he explained,  
"I've been thinking 'cool' or 'hot' at these objects. Never mind how many  
quadrillion molecules there are in things, it works." He shrugged. "The  
large stuff is easy. It only requires power. I think the smaller you work,  
the harder it gets. That's only a guess."  
Soun questioned, "Like diamond daggers from air?"  
"Yeah. That's gonna take a while to figure out. Otherwise, it's just  
a matter of control with large objects."  
With an innocent expression, which fooled no one, Nabiki asked,  
"When are you going to try the next talent?"  
Everyone except Nabiki turned questioning gazes at Twister.  
"Next talent?" asked Ranma.  
Ignoring the last question, Twister replied, "Probably tomorrow,  
hopefully I'll be able to figure something out to protect me while practicing."  
"Why not use the air as a shield?"  
Twister froze then sighed. "All right, that's a good idea. Probably  
the best to use." Nabiki grinned.  
Akane was fustrated, "What _are_ you two talking about?"  
Nabiki hummed, "Flying though the air with the greatest of ease..."

Chapter Twelve  
\--------------

Early morning Sunday, Twister woke up before everybody else in the  
house, including Kasumi.  
*Now _there's_ a wonder. Must have been those two days I slept.*  
Putting on the same clothes that he had worn yesterday, he silently  
walked outside. Once near where he had launched the rock the day before, he  
started thinking about how he was going to do this.  
*First thing to do is to see if I _can_ fly, or at least hover.*  
Closing his eyes, then opening them after thinking better about it,  
he thought of himself as being weightless at first. He grinned. *Don't want to  
think 'up' and end up like that rock.* He pushed off from the ground and slowly  
started rising. *It works! Now let's try 'stop'.* Suddenly, motion stopped and  
he hung in mid-air two feet off the ground. *Hmm. I feel like Wile E. Coyote  
before he went splat. Not a comforting thought.*  
"So _that's_ what you guys were talking about last night!"  
"Wha...?!"  
Concentration broken, Twister dropped down from airborne position.  
"Aggh!" Whomp! "Don't DO that Akane!"  
Akane was dressed up for her morning jog. She was now also covering a  
smile behind her hand.  
"I'm sorry. I didn't think you would fall."  
Picking himself up from the ground, Twister replied, "Unfortunately,  
when one does that one needs concentration. That goes rather quickly when  
one is new at this and is startled by an unexpected audience. Good thing  
I only went two feet." Looking at Akane with an 'I'll get you later' look,  
he continued, "Once I get better, that won't bother me but right now..."  
She giggled. "That should be funny; seeing you hanging in mid-air  
twenty feet off the ground."  
Twister growled, "I _plan_ on doing a bit more than that."  
"I know that. Well, I've got to finish my run before Kasumi does  
breakfast. Bye!"  
"Cya!" Twister watched the departing girl go. *Sheesh. Try to get a  
little practice...ah well. I'd better be prepared for interruptions anyway.  
Let's see... Hover seems fine and so does stopping. Time to try actual flight.  
In small distances.* Resuming a hovering position of two feet off the ground,  
Twister tried moving forward. He slowly advanced forwards and finally stopped  
over the pond.  
*Now _here_ I can get motivation for staying aloft! I'd better try  
to create that shield. If I can manage to fly fast enough I'm going to need  
it.*  
He thought of a sphere of air surrounding his entire body. This sphere  
was immobile but would move with Twister as the center.  
*Hmm. Can I feel it?* He reached out a hand above him and felt a  
resistance that seemed soft yet rubbery. *Yup. It's there but I'd better  
make it firmer.* A little more concentration and the sphere felt like steel.  
*Whoa! Dramatic change or what!* Looking down he got an idea.  
*Ranma and Genma should be coming out to practice soon.* He smiled.  
*Should I do this?*  
Twister thought a moment, then grinned.

Ranma and Genma walked outside and went to opposite sides of the pond.  
Genma went into fighting stance, "Are you ready son?"  
In an identical pose, Ranma replied, "I'm always ready."  
"We'll see."  
They then proceeded to attack each other as they jumped over the pond.  
They kept this up for a good twenty minutes and were relieved when they  
were standing on opposite sides again and heard Kasumi say, "Breakfast!"  
They bowed to each other and each were surprised that neither had  
gotten dunked today. They both looked pleased with themselves.  
WHOOSH! SPLASH!  
"Breakfast? Oh good, I'm hungry!" Twister exclaimed as he hung a foot  
above the middle of the pond. The shield that had been around him was gone  
as he had used it's air molecules to send a carefully directed wave at both  
Genma and Ranma. He appeared blissfully unaware as he floated to the edge  
of the pond and landed. Nabiki, Soun, and Kasumi were trying not to laugh  
as he approached the table and sat. A sudden thought apparently struck him  
and he turned towards the Saotome pair.  
"Oops! Did I get you two wet? Sorry about that." The sudden big grin  
on his face belied the words he had just spoken.  
The now Ranma-chan and Genma-panda glared at him.  
Nabiki smothered her grin, "I see you got that air shield working."  
Still grinning as he turned his head to her, Twister replied, "Yup.  
Works like a charm and it's waterproof to boot."  
A female hand and a panda paw each grabbed a shoulder and threw him  
into the pond. He sputtered to the surface and smiled at the two who had  
thrown him in.  
"I gotcha _first_."  
Ranma-chan snorted as she brushed wet hair from her eyes. "Alright, we  
deserved it anyway for getting caught like that." The panda nodded. "But that  
_was_ satisfying."  
Grinning now, Twister responded, "Not for long."  
Ranma-chan was puzzled at that last statement. "What'd you mean?"  
Twister stepped out of the pond and shook water out of his hair.  
Still smiling, he held his shirt and pants tightly in the belt area and  
then concentrated. Wind started rushing into his collar and up from his feet.  
Water sprayed out from his clothing as a wild wind blew around every thread  
in his clothing, drying them instantly. A final touch was a blast of air that  
dried his hair.  
"Because I'm still dry and _you_ are still wet." He laughed. *Glad that  
idea worked.* Twister thought to himself.  
Ranma-chan and the panda looked in stunned disbelief as the Tendo family  
laughed as well. Akane had just walked in the door to see Ranma get splashed.  
The expression on Ranma-chan's face after Twister's display caused her to laugh  
as well.  
"Prepared for this audience did you?" She finally got out.  
"Yup." Twister said as he passed the still wet Ranma-chan and panda  
on the way back to the table and sat. "Pass the water if you please..."  
Nabiki chuckled, "You certainly have a flair. Are you always this  
amusing?"  
Twister smiled back, "Not usually but I realized I was going to need  
practice for a much better target."  
Ranma-chan broke out of her stunned state and, in spite of feeling a  
little angry, queried Twister, "And who the heck is that?"  
Twister chuckled, "Who else but a guy you and Akane see every school  
morning?"  
Both Akane and Ranma-chan started. Then Ranma-chan smiled broadly,  
"Kunou."  
Signaling that her accuracy was correct with a victory sign, he said  
loudly, "Batter up!"  
Nabiki made a sad face and sadly said, "Poor Kunou-baby. He'll never  
know what hit him."

Chapter Thirteen  
\----------------

Later, Twister was wandering though the Tendo household and found  
himself entering the kitchen. Kasumi's realm. She appeared to have just started  
making lunch and looked very efficient doing it too.  
"Hi Kasumi. Busy with making lunch?" He spoke cheerfully.  
Smiling quickly at him then resuming what she was doing, she replied  
"Yes, I am. Did you want anything?"  
"No, not really. I just thought I'd take a break." He looked around  
curiously, "Do you mind if I watch you? It looks interesting."  
"Certainly, as long as you are quiet. I do need to concentrate on  
several things at the same time usually."  
Twister pantomimed zipping his lips together, "I'll just fade into  
the woodwork." He paused. "Funny. I used to have a lousy memory, but now it  
seems I can remember anything I've done. Maybe I'll try some chocolate chip  
cookies someday."  
Kasumi looked up in interest. "You'll have to tell me the recipe  
someday."  
"No problem. I'll go mum now."  
That said, Kasumi resumed the preparations for lunch while Twister  
quietly observed out of the way, trying to be unnoticeable and not distract  
Kasumi. He didn't realize how well he was doing it until Nabiki walked  
in.  
Looking around the kitchen she asked, "Hey, Kasumi. Have you seen  
Twister?"  
Kasumi was startled. "Isn't he here?"  
Nabiki started when Twister mildly said, "I think I faded in too  
well with the woodwork."  
Staring at Twister, Nabiki said, "How did you do _that_??"  
Scratching his head he replied, "I didn't want to distract Kasumi  
while I was watching her so I just tried to be as unnoticeable as I could.  
When you looked around, your eyes passed right by me."  
Thinking back, Nabiki exclaimed softly, "You're right! I can recall  
seeing you but you just didn't register in my mind." She grinned. "That  
can be a useful talent. I bet Ranma wishes he could do it."  
Laughing at that last remark, Twister smiled. "Well, chalk up another  
talent to the list." He looked inquiringly at Nabiki. "What did you want  
to see me for anyway?"  
"Oh right. I was thinking that if you wanted to practice high flying,  
being noticed might bring attraction to you." She grinned. "The papers would  
have a field day. So I thought a disguise might be in order."  
Twister groaned, "Shades of secret identities, Batman! I hadn't thought  
of that. Well, actually I did but I didn't know what to do about it."  
She was still grinning, "Well, my disguise and that new trick of yours  
should do nicely. It could be useful for _later_."  
*Dang! She hasn't forgotten that. I was hoping... Ah well.* He sighed  
and bowed for her to take the lead, "Lead on my lady..."

"I don't know whether to laugh or cry."  
Akane and Nabiki glared. Akane said tartly, "It's not _that_ bad."  
Twister looked at the clothing again. "Well, I was expecting something  
more unusual for some reason. They do make sense."  
The clothing in question was a jean jacket and pants done in the  
latest bleach fashion making a light blue and white mosaic on the garments.  
A winter ski-mask that was a matching light blue had cute white patterns  
sewn into it.  
"It will match well on a clear or party cloudy day." Nabiki replied.  
"They are supposed to be baggy on me but they should fit you alright." She  
grinned slightly, "Ready for a test flight?"  
He glanced again at the clothing, "As I'll ever be, I guess."  
"Good! Now get dressed and we'll be waiting in the garden." Nabiki  
ran out the door as she said that last.  
Akane and Twister stared after her.  
In a puzzled voice, Twister asked Akane, "She seems unusually excited  
by all this doesn't she?"  
Akane was looked speculative now, "Maybe not."  
"Huh?"  
She smiled, "Oh, nothing. Just thinking out loud." She walked out  
and closed the door before he could comment.  
Twister started putting on his 'disguise'. *Hmm. I wonder what that  
was about.* He chuckled. *Thank God they didn't have a cape handy...*

Akane caught up to Nabiki at the garden. Ranma was there too.  
"This oughtta be interesting, considering Akane helped with the  
disguise that is." He said offhandedly.  
She flushed at this. "Are you saying I don't have good taste in  
clothing?"  
"Well considering your taste in cooking..."  
"Ranma no baka!" Akane ran after Ranma around the garden. Unfortunately,  
for Ranma, he tripped over something and Akane caught up to him just as he  
got back up.  
Ranma went ballistic.  
Just as he started falling down and wondering how he was going to  
land, a blue and white figure launched out of a window from the Tendo house  
and caught him safely, after a few course corrections.  
"Trying to bug Akane again I see." Twister's muffled voice was amused.  
He slowly started a descent back towards the garden. Akane and Nabiki had  
seen the catch and were waiting for them.  
When they touched down, Nabiki said, "Nice catch." Akane still looked  
steamed over Ranma's comment and glared at Ranma, who was now looking carefully  
at the clouds in the sky.  
Twister took of the ski-mask and grinned, "For a first time, true.  
However... Are you two going to do that again? Practice makes perfect." Now  
Ranma glared at _him_ now while Akane had to smile a little.  
Twister continued, "At least the clothes fit nicely. I'll likely  
try flying around town to really test myself."  
Akane was concerned, "Even with the clothes, you'll be noticed for  
sure."  
Nabiki chuckled, "I don't think that will be a problem." She explained  
the kitchen incident.  
Twister put the mask back on, "This will be a challenge in any event.  
I don't think I can be 'unnoticed' and have the shield up at the same time  
while flying so I won't go fast." He looked up. "No time like the present."  
In a humor-filled voice he cried. "Up, up, up, and away!" He went straight up,  
leaving groans behind him as he slowly leveled off.  
Nabiki stared after at Twister's figure flying away.  
Akane noticed this and nudged Ranma. "Look at Nabiki." She whispered.  
"Why?" He said in a bored tone.  
Akane hit him again.  
Sitting dazed as Akane stormed angrily away, Ranma asked himself,  
"What's with _her_? Crazy tomboy."

Twister was not very thrilled with flying.  
*Shoot. I'd forgotten that I've always been a little leery of heights.  
Having _nothing_ under me at fifty feet in the air does _not_ help.* As a  
result he was flying slowly over town while making himself unnoticeable.  
*Still, it _is_ fun once you get used to it and ignore the fact that nothing  
is supporting you.*  
Not wishing to get lost, he flew around a bit more but not too far.  
After twenty minutes he was about to go back when he noticed a disturbance  
in the street below him.  
*Hullo. What's going on down there?*  
Dropping to thirty feet he saw an angry horde of women chasing...  
an old man?  
*Now who...who...who...ho ho ho! Happosei! The bugger that started  
all this!* Anger rushed to the fore and Twister thought about how he could  
get the old fool.  
*Great. Now I'm thinking like Ranma.* That realization drained his  
anger. Humor rushed up instead. Likely the worst of two evils.  
*Well, I haven't properly introduced myself to him yet.* He grinned  
and dropped to the street where he guessed Happosei would turn next and  
took of the mask. *Five. Four. Three. Two. One...*  
Happosei turned the corner, looking behind him, *Almost lost them!*  
he thought happily. When he looked ahead, the sight of a person he remembered  
vividly, leaning casually against a wall and looking straight at _him_, stopped  
him in his tracks.  
The person spoke. "Ah! You must be Happosei! I've _so_ been wanting to  
meet with you." He grinned widely. "If you may recall, my name is Twister.  
I want to talk to you about a certain _summoning_ spell..." The grin vanished  
and a blue aura was starting to become visible.  
Happosei paled. He remembered that this being had defeated an arch-demon  
and survived. There was _no_ way he was likely to beat this young man. He turned  
around and ran back the way he came, so frightened he forget one minor detail.  
One _very_ angry horde of women which had a bone to pick with him.  
Twister winced at the sounds reaching him from around the corner.  
When they stopped and the angry voices faded away, he grinned and walked around  
the corner to see the result.  
Happosei was not recognizable.  
Standing close and bending his knees to kneel by the unconscious  
figure, Twister waited until the old Master opened his eyes.  
Happosei glanced above him and saw the same young man he had run from  
a few moments ago grinning widely. Twister chuckled then and said, "Gotcha!"  
Twister stood up, walked back a bit, put on the mask, and flew away.  
Indignant rage flared in Happosei's eyes before he passed out again.

Chapter Fourteen  
\----------------

Twister returned just in time for lunch. He mentioned Happosei in town  
and what he had done to him.  
Ranma grinned, "Good. The old goat deserves it."  
"Especially after what he did to you." Akane added.  
Musing aloud, Twister mentioned, "I wonder if that little incident  
will make him lose that fear of me I saw. I certainly didn't make myself  
appear very threatening." To himself he added, *At least, _after_ he got  
pounded upon...*  
Nabiki smirked, "If I hear him in his room again, we'll know."  
"I don't think he will bother you much if he keeps that fight with  
Malkon in mind," Soun shuddered.  
"That makes _my_ heart go at ease..." Twister sighed.  
Suddenly, from the direction of the bathing room, Ryouga appeared.  
"Ranma! It is time to fight!" He saw Twister looking steadily at him and  
amended his words, "...outside."  
Ranma stood up. "Fine with me if it stops you from challenging me  
all the time."  
"You will not be so confident after I defeat you!" Ryouga almost  
launched himself at Ranma but remembered Twister again and merely walked  
outside to wait.  
Soun commented, "At least they will not damage the house again."  
Nabiki snorted, "Not for lack of trying I bet."  
Shaking his head, Twister followed Ranma outside. He walked over to  
where the fence was and turned around to watch the two combatants fight as he  
leaned on the fencepost.  
They started up and it was apparent that, while Ryouga _was_ stronger,  
Ranma seemed quicker. Twister was slightly alarmed when one of Ryouga's  
headbands came right at him but he quickly dodged to the side and it went past  
him to go through the fence. *Flying bandannas are _not_ nice.* He thought to  
himself.  
Then a feeling of doom overcame Twister and he couldn't figure out  
what it was. A _strong_ urge to jump to the side came and he decided to listen  
to it...just in time.  
Wham!  
A bicycle with a lavender haired girl landed in exactly the same  
spot he had been a second ago. The girl seemed a little jarred.  
*Likely because her landings usually have cushions,* Twister thought.  
*Owch.*  
She didn't look at him as she dug something out of her container that  
she held.  
"Why you move Ranma? Is not Shampoo your fiancee?" Shampoo asked,  
slightly aggrieved.  
Eyebrow raised, Twister replied, "If I were Ranma, I would look up  
the definition of 'fiancee'. I don't believe being a live landing pad  
is a qualification of one." To himself, he added sarcasticly, *Joy.  
Ryouga and now Shampoo. The perks in life are many and varied.*  
Shampoo started and turned around at the voice that was definitely  
not Ranma's.  
"You wear Ranma's clothes but you not Ranma!"  
Akane had walked over after seeing Shampoo land and she said, "I guess  
your eyesight hasn't gone as bad as Mousse's, Shampoo."  
Shampoo's eyes narrowed at Akane's words while ignoring Twister, "Where  
Ranma?"  
SPLASH!  
Twister looked in the direction of the splash. "Currently taking a  
bath in the pond I do believe. Looks like Ryouga has disappeared again too."  
Turning back to Shampoo, he saw that she had a pile of cookies on a plate  
in her hand. He groaned softly. *Not another magical recipe. If it's for Ranma  
then it's likely to be another generic 'love me forever' plot." Twister rolled  
his eyes. Then an idea hit him. *Well now. Let's see if we can teach Miss  
Shampoo a lesson in careful magic management.*  
Shampoo had gotten off the bike by now and was advancing towards  
a soaking-wet Ranma-chan.  
"Ranma! Shampoo make good cookies just for you! They very spe..."  
Twister snuck up and grabbed a cookie, "Hey! Not take that!"  
Twister ignored the panicky Shampoo and ate the cookie quickly before  
she could stop him.  
He looked at Shampoo and blinked.  
Twister suddenly rushed towards her and kneeled before her, spreading  
his hands wide. "My love! Where have you been all my life! Please let me  
take your hand so that I may worship it!" He shouted this devotion loudly.  
Everyone but an angry Shampoo was shocked at his reaction.  
"Should not have eaten cookie meant for Ranma!" She threw a fist  
at the face of the kneeling Twister.  
With his unexpectedly quick reactions, Twister caught her hand and  
continued his speal of love. "Ah, such a lovely hand. If I could but hold  
it forever." Forever was likely true as Shampoo tried in vain to pull her  
hand away from the very strong grip it was in.  
Akane meanwhile had gone back to Nabiki and whispered worriedly, "I  
thought he was immune to magic."  
Unconcerned, Nabiki chuckled, truly amused, "He's hamming it up to the  
hilt. I wonder what he plans to do now."  
Realization dawned in Akane, "You mean..." Then she smiled.  
Shampoo had meanwhile tried her other hand but it had gotten ensnared  
as well. Twister went on, "I shall take you away from all this, my dear heart."  
He released her hands and Shampoo was relieved for a moment. That is, until  
Twister swept her off her feet and started running swiftly away in the  
direction of Ranma-chan, who was starting to get it after looking very puzzled  
for a while.  
"Stop crazy man!" Shampoo was frantic. This unknown person had  
intercepted her blows, caught her off guard, and was likely under the  
influence of the magic in her cookies.  
Twister stopped. "Why so my love?"  
"I _not_ your love! Release Shampoo now!"  
"Are you sure my love?" Twister said in a sad tone.  
"Shampoo sure!"  
"Very well my love..." Suddenly the crazy man grinned. He had pretended  
to run and had floated over the pond. Then, when he had stopped in the middle,  
he had slowly started increasing his altitude. They were about ten feet up in  
the air now.  
Shampoo finally realized that they had somehow reached a formidable  
height above the ground and her eyes widened.  
Twister dropped her at that point.  
"Happy splashdown, my love!" He cried after her.  
Shampoo had just opened her mouth to scream when she reached the  
water.  
SPLOOSH!  
Twister floated back down to ground level and touchdowned at the  
edge of the pool. He turned to the laughing Ranma-chan and Akane that were  
beside him.  
"Think she'll be mad at me?" He said innocently.  
"Furious." Ranma-chan laughed.  
Twister sighed dramatically and put a hand over his heart. "Ah.  
Farewell my lost love..."  
Akane giggled, "I really thought you had been affected by that cookie."  
He winced, "Please. I wouldn't _wish_ that much syrup on anyone who  
didn't deserve it." Looking in the pond, he continued, "Speaking of just  
deserts..."  
Shampoo-cat was almost at the pond's shore. Her little paws were  
frantically moving to reach the ground ahead. Ranma-chan looked at her with  
rapidly widening eyes and quickly ducked behind Akane, who rolled her eyes at  
Ranma's phobia of cats, in fright.  
Twister took pity and picked Shampoo-cat out of the pond. "I don't  
believe we've been introduced yet. Name's Twister. Nice day for a swim, no?"  
The waterlogged feline managed to look angry yet docile in a cute sort of way.  
He turned around and started towards the kitchen. "Better get her clothes  
Ranma. I believe she'll need them soon and since you're already wet..."  
Ranma-chan kept Akane between her and Shampoo-cat as she called out the  
affirmative in a shaky voice.  
Twister mused to himself as he walked with Shampoo-cat, *Why do I  
seem to be dousing everyone with water lately?*

Chapter Fifteen  
\---------------

A completely cloaked figure walked up a misty trail hidden in the  
mountains. A darkness beyond mere shadow prevented anyone from seeing what  
lay hidden inside the hood.  
The man who called himself the Guide spotted this strange person  
approaching him. This was not unusual. Only strange people visited this  
place it seemed. The place's reputation was such that only that kind of  
person, or those who did not believe the power here, would visit.  
The figure silently glided smoothly towards him. Before he could  
greet this visitor, he was beaten to it by a pleasant voice that originated  
from within the hood.  
"" The figure spoke in fluent Chinese.  
""  
"" He bowed.  
" _" The figure replied.  
A chuckle escaped from the hood._

_Twister had left to allow the girls to change Shampoo back with the  
hot water. His contemplation of the pool was shattered by a enraged shout.  
"WHERE TWISTER?!!"  
Twister paled. "Urk!" came out of his mouth.  
*YI! YI! YI! YI! Time to use that 'unnoticeable' trick _big_ time!* And  
he started doing just that.  
A now-clothed Shampoo rushed out into the pond area, wielding her  
maces. *Now _where_ did she get those?! Think 'ignore me' Twister!* On  
reflection, she wasn't likely to be able to kill him but he wasn't sure about  
him doing that accidentally to her. That fact didn't help his panic on seeing  
Shampoo, *Hell hath no fury...*  
Shampoo glared around the area, eyes passing right over Twister, and  
noticed nothing. Leaving her cookies that were still on the plate, she got  
on her bike and shouted, "When Shampoo find Twister she kill!" With that  
pleasant thought in mind, she biked through the fence and pedaled swiftly away.  
Ranma, Akane, and Nabiki ran out to try to prevent a fight but found  
nothing.  
Nabiki called out worriedly, "Twister?"  
"Furious?! I'd say 'completely and utterly berserk and hounding for my  
blood' would have been more accurate." Twister sarcastically said from his  
unnoticed position beside Ranma.  
"Yah!" Ranma jumped up five feet into the air.  
"What did you say anyway? She didn't look _near_ that mad as a cat."  
"Akane told her you were immune to magic and that you knew about  
the cookies," Nabiki replied.  
Thoughtfully, Twister mused, "Maybe I shouldn't have dunked her..."  
Nabiki smiled, "A bit after the fact now."  
Ranma glared at Twister for the scare he got, then smirked. "Well,  
she won't be after me for a while anyway."  
Akane turned on him, "Ranma! That's not funny!"  
"Actually it was," Twister grinned, "Shampoo certainly had that coming  
with that obvious magical cookie ploy." He chuckled at the memory. Spying  
the abandoned cookies he went over and picked them up. Presenting it to  
Nabiki he declared, "Cookie, Madam?"  
"No thanks, I'll pass."  
Twister grinned, "Ah well. More for me I guess. They _are_ good." So  
saying, he munched another cookie.  
Akane had calmed down but was still glaring at Ranma, "Well, Shampoo  
_has_ had that coming for some time."  
"Why should you care, Akane?" Ranma jibed.  
"What makes you think I care about you! You pervert!"  
"Well, no one would want a tomboy like you!"  
Ranma and Akane would have continued but Twister passed between the  
two and called out behind him while heading towards the house, "Be back in a  
sec, Nabiki! I'm just going to get the popcorn and soft drinks and I'll be right  
back!"  
He was halfway to the door before he was thrown, laughing, into the  
pond by Akane and Ranma._

_Shampoo returned to her family restaurant still enraged.  
*I will kill that Twister!* She thought murderously, *Pretending  
to be enchanted and making a fool of me! In front of Ranma yet!*  
Cologne saw Shampoo's furious state and wondered at it. Normally,  
Shampoo was calm most all the time.  
""  
"" Shampoo  
banged her maces on a countertop, denting it a little. ""  
Cologne was surprised. ""  
Shampoo told her about the deception that Twister pulled off and what  
Akane told her later.  
" _" She looked faintly puzzled  
in her anger, " _"  
Cologne looked grave. "" She  
chuckled, "" Looking more  
thoughtful, ""  
Shampoo looked depressed from her great-grandmother's words, ""  
"" Cologne continued, "" Cologne chuckled. ""  
With new determination, Shampoo replied, "" She straightened and  
hit the two maces together to punctuate this fact.  
Hiding behind a wall, Mousse overheard the entire conversation.  
*Someone humiliated Shampoo? Then he must die at my hands and Shampoo will  
thank me for revenging her. This Twister will fall to the many hidden weapons  
of Mousse!*  
He left the restaurant quietly.___

___Chapter Sixteen  
\---------------_ _ _

___After supper, Twister asked Nabiki to follow him up to the guest room.  
Wondering what he wanted, Nabiki strode forward past him and sat on the bed.  
"What did you want to talk about?" Nabiki was curious.  
Twister leaned on a wall, "I just wanted a little help figuring out  
what to do tomorrow and I thought your sneaky mind could be of immense  
help." He grinned.  
She raised an eyebrow, "You don't know yet?"  
Twister sighed, "I always _did_ wait till the last minute."  
Chuckling at that Nabiki thought about the problem.  
Twister continued, "I thought of tripping him but that's too crude.  
Spinning him around till he fell over isn't funny enough." He sighed.  
"A good practical joke is hard to think up even _with_ prime material like  
Kunou." Twister grinned at that last statement.  
Nabiki looked up suddenly and smiled.  
Noticing this, Twister backed away, "Uh oh. I can tell this is gonna  
be _bad_." He paused, then smiled with Nabiki. "For Kunou that is."  
Smiling even more, Nabiki asked him, "You only have a problem with  
_water_ right?" Twister nodded. Now she grinned openly. "I'm going to have  
to take my camera for this."  
"I can hear the Bells of Doom ringing for upperclassman Kunou even now."  
Twister laughingly predicted._ _ _

___The sun was just starting to show on the horizon when Twister woke  
the next day.  
He rubbed his eyes and looked out the window, *Huh? I got up even  
_earlier_ today? Must not need as much sleep anymore. Probably slept as long  
as I did yesterday because I was still recovering from the fight.* Twister  
got up and stretched. *I wonder. The Event must not have been a picnic either  
since it's the only thing I can't _remember_ it. I was likely a little tired  
before even fighting Malkon, which finished the job of exhausting me. I wonder  
how long it will be till I'm _fully_ recovered. There's a frightening thought.*  
Getting off of the bed, Twister regarded the same borrowed clothing  
Nabiki had taken from Ranma. *I also need a wardrobe. Just can't wear the  
same clothes every day. I do _not_ want to live off the Tendos like a leech.  
Hmm. Income.* Since he had time before the rest of the house woke up, he put  
some thought into it.  
After a time, an obvious idea flashed in his mind.  
*But it was only temporary that time.* He worried. Then he shook his  
head. *And done on purpose and rushed to boot. I think I can remember the  
pattern but it's still going to be hard. I said it before. It's the small  
things that are really hard.* Twister sat cross-legged and got ready.  
*Here we go...*_ _ _

___Everyone was gathered for breakfast except Twister. Nabiki was about  
to go get him when she saw him walking down the stairs. He looked like he  
had been running for a while because he was sweating.  
She raised her eyebrow inquiringly at him.  
"Sorry, I was trying something out and lost track of time." He looked  
triumphant.  
Akane asked, "When did you get up?"  
"Oh, about two hours ago." He sat down.  
Ranma stared at him. "Two _hours_? What were you trying that took  
_that_ amount of time or are you just slow?"  
Ignoring that last, Twister answered him, "Looking for future income  
possibilities." He looked at the table."You know, every time I do something  
hard my appetite increases and if I don't for a while I lose any desire to eat.  
Funny." He shrugged and started eating.  
Nabiki was still curious, "Income possibilities?"  
"I'll show you after this morning's...activities. Don't forget your  
camera." He grinned.  
She grinned back.  
Ranma and Akane were both curious but Twister stopped their questions  
by saying, "It will be _much_ funnier in the aftermath..."  
Nabiki and Twister left early so they would have time. Walking quickly  
they got to the school before Kunou and got ready._ _ _

___Ranma and Akane came much later, wondering what the pair were going  
to do. Once they got to school they didn't have to wonder much longer.  
Akane and Ranma gaped at the sight when they arrived at the entrance of  
the school.  
The school had an extended protective overhang to shield the front  
doors from rain. Kunou was apparently stuck, at the waistline, onto this  
overhang. That wasn't all. Twister had borrowed syrup from Kasumi's  
kitchen and had somehow sprayed it evenly all over Kunou's body and clothes.  
Then, he had managed to gather enough leaves to cover practically every square  
inch of his body, except for the face, with green shrubbery. Twister had  
even hardened the syrup on Kunou's arms so that they stuck straight out  
like a scarecrow. The result was this leafy, green man that looked like  
a scarecrow, hanging like a good-luck horseshoe, over the entrance to the  
school. Several students were gathered below him wondering how he got up  
there in the first place and how they could get him down. And how to shut him  
up.  
"I am the Blue Thunder of Furinkan High! I will not be disgraced like  
this! I will have my revenge on the persons responsible for this outrage!" He  
spotted Akane and Ranma below him trying not to laugh and failing miserably.  
"Ranma Saotome! _You_ are responsible for this! I will flay the living flesh  
from your body and let it fly towards the sea for the fish to eat!"  
"Oh, put a sock in it Kunou! How did you think that _I_ could do...,"  
Ranma pointed at Kunou, "That??"  
"Black magic, you foul fiend! The same that entraps the beautiful,  
pig-tailed one!" Kunou shouted.  
Ranma rolled his eyes. Taking another look at the hilarious image of  
Kunou for something to cheer him up on a bad day, he said to Akane, "Come on,  
we'd better get to class." He shouted up at Kunou, "I wouldn't hang around all  
day Kunou!" Laughing, Akane and Ranma entered the school.  
They could hear Kunou's voice fading as the doors closed, "Get me  
down from here you ignorant fools! Takewati Kunou will not tolerate being  
humiliated like this for..."_ _ _

___Twister was still laughing softly in Ranma and Akane's classroom  
when they came in. He just couldn't get that image of Kunou, sticking out  
like a big, green, piece of moss on the school, out of his mind. No one had  
realized he was in class because of his 'unnotice me' trick.  
*Hahahahahaha. Deities, that was funny! Especially after he realized  
what had been done to him. He'll _never_ figure it out.*  
Looking at Ranma and Akane's faces, he could tell that they had seen  
Kunou as well. Mirth like that is hard to hide.  
Ranma spotted Twister sitting in a desk and sat down in the desk  
beside him. Still laughing he asked, "How did you manage to hang _up_ that  
jerk?"  
Moving his eyebrows up and down, Twister reponded, "Trade secret."  
Seeing Akane sit down as well he went on, "Also, it wouldn't be funny  
if I told you." He smirked. "Besides, Nabiki used up a whole roll of film  
when I was done. You can chortle at the wallet and poster size photos  
soon. For a price. As always." He sighed, "Nabiki's likely to sell the  
negatives to Kunou for a hefty price so you'd better get prints soon.  
I do _good_ work if I do say so myself."  
Worrying, Akane asked, "Why are you in our class anyway? Aren't  
you worried about the teacher? You _do_ look young enough to still be in  
high school you know."  
Twister didn't look worried, "I told Nabiki that I needed to see your  
reactions when you got here. After seeing Kunou, she could readily agree  
with that sentiment." He grinned. "Anyway, I planned on staying for a class  
just to remember my high school days. I'll just be _unnoticed_. It really  
doesn't take much to do it."  
Ranma snorted, "You're gonna have to stand then. This is a full  
room usually." Twister's face fell. "Miss Hinako would go after anybody  
who missed class."  
Recognition lit in Twister's eyes. "Owch. This _is_ the teacher  
who you have been trying to rid of that nasty battle-aura draining power?"  
Ranma nodded sourly, "Not much luck I take it. Oh well. Stand I shall do."  
Twister walked to a back corner and leaned on a wall while Ranma and Akane's  
classmates asked them why they were talking while facing away from each other.  
The teacher in question then entered the class. She looked like a kid  
to Twister but he knew what power she had. Very effective class control.  
He was still in an 'unnotice me' mode fortunately. Being disciplined by _her_  
might not be pleasant. He prepared himself for the typical boring class to  
start and looked at the floor.  
"Who are _you_?" A high-pitched, girl's voice asked.  
Startled, Twister looked up and saw Hinako looking right at him.  
*Uh oh. Apparently, she can see though the 'unnotice me' trick. Not good  
Twister.*  
"Uh..." He noticed the class staring at him as he had only let Akane and  
Ranma know he was there. "Just an interested observer. I was curious about your  
teaching and decided to drop in on a class." Twister didn't have much hope of  
her buying that.  
"You don't look like an observer. You look like a delinquent."  
*Strike that. Make that _no_ hope.*  
Grinning weakly, Twister went towards an open window, "Well, now you  
see me, now you don't," He jumped outside. Just before he hit he slowed his  
fall. *Probably didn't need to, but...*  
THUMP!  
*Uh oh.* Twister looked behind him and saw Hinako glaring at him.  
*Great. I have _no_ idea what her power will do to me. Unfortunately, I may  
be about to find out. Beat retreat feet.*  
Twister ran like the blazes and Hinako went after him.  
He heard something behind him but couldn't hear because of the wind  
going past his ears. Then he knew as he felt an extremely faint tug on him.  
*She must have tried that power. Must not have worked.* He looked  
behind and was shocked. Hinako had grown to amazon size and was still chasing  
him. He was going at a cruising speed and wasn't tired but she was starting  
to puff. *How much did she drain? I certainly didn't feel much of a loss...*  
They had been running around the school and were now at their starting  
point. Twister decided to stop and experience some practice. Hinako saw him  
stop and smiled slightly.  
*Think I'm giving up??* Out loud he said, "I wouldn't be so smug  
lady. I'm not the one who's puffing after draining enough energy to change.  
Off of me to boot."  
"Prepare yourself delinquent," The voice had matured and was husky  
sounding, "My wrath is great." Hinako held up both hands and a crackling  
bolt of power roared towards Twister, who didn't move fast enough and got  
caught by it. He was flung onto a tree and slammed into it with bone-jarring  
force.  
Shaking his head, Twister quickly recovered his wits. *Owwww.... THAT  
hurt. That blast is powerful all right. That coin manouver sure is strong and  
when she uses it...* He blinked as he thought of something.  
Against a telekinetic. DUH!  
*Shoot! Idiot! I should've realized that before. She can't drain  
without a circle. Well, bye bye yen piece.* Focusing lightly, Twister twitched  
the coin out of the Teacher-From-Hell's two fingers. "You should wash those  
greasy hands you know." Twister commented offhandedly.  
Hinako had shrunk down to normal size after her power bolt, "That's not  
funny, you bad boy!" She reached for another coin.  
*Hm. I have a feeling she's going to miss her class. Oh well.*_ _ _

___After approximately a hundred more tries, with Twister just standing  
there getting bored, Hinako gave up in frustration.  
Twister walked up close to her. "You know, you drained only a _very_  
small piece of my aura that first time. And I wasn't tired one bit. Imagine  
what would have happened if I had _let_ you take more than that..." She  
looked puzzled, "Overload. Over-charge. Meltdown." He pantomimed an explosion.  
The hint registered and she stared in shock. He nodded. "Not very healthy.  
Besides, I finished high school three years ago. I just look younger than  
I am." He looked at the tower clock. "Well I've wasted enough of your time,  
your class is over by the way. I'll just mosey on." He smiled. "Bye teach."  
Twister walked away.  
Looking back, he saw her still in shock with Ranma-chan quietly  
advancing on her from behind.  
*Well, that'll teach her not to make assumptions rapidly...I hope.*_ _ _

___Chapter Seventeen  
\-----------------_ _ _

___Twister waited outside for lunch hour to go talk with Nabiki.  
Fortunately, his body had recovered enough so that he was only mildly hungry.  
"Ah. Don't need to eat right now." He grinned, "The reaction I think  
I'm going to get from Nabiki will drive away any thoughts of eating." Touching  
the object in his pocket reassured him. It felt as stable as everything else  
around him. "This should make her perk up. Heh."  
Entering the school again while thinking 'unnoticeable', and looking  
out for Miss Hinako, Twister found the cafeteria. After a bit of searching,  
he saw Nabiki sitting by herself. Puzzled, he looked around some more and saw  
Ranma and Akane each with a group of schoolmates.  
*Hmm. Guess blackmail doesn't make many friends.* He felt depressed  
for some reason.  
Walking over to her table and sitting opposite her, he waited till  
she was drinking some milk, "HEL-lo!" He said happily.  
He got his wish. Nabiki sprayed milk from her mouth...right onto  
Twister's face.  
Nabiki started to shout at him but the sight of his milk covered,  
rue-filled expression started her laughing instead.  
Wiping his face, Twister sourly said, "THAT worked well..."  
"You got what you deserved scaring me like that." She giggled.  
*Nabiki? Giggle? Hm. She _must_ be amused...*  
He put on a mock-pouting expression, "Well, maybe I shouldn't show  
what I worked on this morning."  
Nabiki's interest was piqued. "Come on," She smiled, "You don't  
fool me. What is it?"  
"Wellll...." Grinning, he took the object and placed it on the table  
in front of her.  
She looked at it in a questioning manner. Then realization dawned.  
"That isn't what I think it is???" Nabiki shouted, astonished by the object.  
The entire cafeteria went silent and stared at her, more surprised  
by the fact that it was Nabiki who shouted than by the noise itself. Nabiki  
looked embarrassed while Twister looked on in amusement as he had gone back  
to 'unnotice me' mode and was missed by everyone.  
After everyone lost interest, Twister chuckled, "Yup. Took a while to  
figure out the sucker, and make it, but it's as solid and stable as any natural  
one. The reason I was sweating this morning was that it's a _hot_ process.  
Excess oxygen." He scratched his head. "I can make larger ones but the larger  
it gets the slower it takes. More surface area." He grinned then, "Solves my  
income problem anyway."  
Nabiki picked up the object, "A diamond." She shook her head as  
her eyes checked out the jewel. "Completely flawless too."  
He shrugged. "If it's examined, people will know it's not a natural one.  
I made it in a small vacuum and used only carbon from the air so there are  
_no_ impurities. Some people might question how _that_ neat little trick was  
done."  
With an appraising look in her eye, she replied, "Some people would  
pay quite a lot for something that has no _impurities_, diamond or not.  
This _looks_ like a perfectly cut diamond and that fact cannot be denied."  
"Well, its definitely not natural and the cut was how I formed it.  
I could have made the edges sharp to the molecular level but I don't think  
that would be easy to explain...or handle for that matter."  
"No, it would not," Nabiki chuckled, "I think I can ask someone I know  
in college about how much a perfectly good, flawless, pure carbon diamond  
would go for." She grinned. "With the way they spend their grants there I  
think I can find a nice price for this. No questions asked. It will likely  
fetch a higher price as a research object than as an ordinary diamond."  
Twister leaned back, "Heh. I _knew_ you would likely have an idea of  
where to sell it."  
Nabiki smiled broadly, "Now about my commission..."  
He groaned. "Uh oh."_ _ _

___*Whew! She sure can debate fees!*  
Twister was walking back to the Tendo home after his little 'talk' with  
Nabiki. The fact that Kunou had finally managed to get down from their  
little prank had amused him on the way out from the school.  
*Anyway, she'll likely have that thing sold by Wednesday. She sure  
moves fast when she wants too.* He grinned at the memory of her shouting  
in the cafeteria. *That solves income for a while. The fact that I'm going  
to pay Mr. Tendo for room and board helped my case against her's. The  
other reason was that I want some clothes of my own. That Nabiki will get  
more after this first diamond mollified her.*  
As he was happily contemplating this, he failed to notice someone  
landing on the spot which he had walked over a second ago.  
"Are you the one called 'Twister'?" Someone called out behind Twister,  
startling him.  
Turning around, Twister got a look at the person who asked the  
question. He was a Chinese, black-haired young man. His hands were  
hidden by the sleeves of his robe as they were folded in front of him. He was  
wearing glasses. This last fact gave Twister his questioner's identity.  
Mousse.  
*Oh boy. Why do I think this has something to do with me making  
fun of Shampoo? Especially when she herself is not here. Acting on his  
own then. Great. Two vendettas for the price of one.*  
Nervously, Twister replied, "Moi? Ah, I think you may be mistaken.  
Maybe you should check those glasses."  
"I think I am not." Mousse stated to Twister's dismay, "You must  
pay for what you did to Shampoo, my future wife."  
*Ah well. He ain't gonna _not_ fight.* Thinking sourly, he shrugged  
inwardly, *Engage full sarcasm mode Ensign. Aye aye Captain.* Arching his  
right eyebrow, Twister chuckled, "Ever ask _her_ permission about that?"  
_That_ got a reaction.  
Mousse growled as he prepared himself, "You will die for that fool."_ _ _

___ _

___Chapter Eighteen  
\-----------------_ _ _

___The two combatants faced each other in the middle of the street.  
They were unaware of a third person watching them from a rooftop.  
*Foolish Mousse! This Twister made a fool of me and he thinks he  
can take _him_?* Shampoo shook her head. *This at least gives Shampoo a  
chance to study Twister's abilites. I will watch and maybe if Mousse lucky  
he will win and Shampoo will not have to kill Twister herself.* She looked  
dubious. *Twister does not look overly worried though. I think Mousse in for  
bad fight. Teach him right. Shampoo do her revenge on her own.*  
Meanwhile, on the street, Twister got ready.  
*Mousse is a master of concealed weapons. Joy. I think a weapons  
merchant would be delighted with the array of stuff Mousse is going to chuck  
at me.* He was a little worried. *I don't think I'll be able to catch the  
stuff by TK. I'm not that good yet. He'll be moving too fast himself.  
I'll dodge what I can before boosting myself.* He grinned. *_Then_ he'll  
be in for a shock.*  
Suddenly, Mousse attacked. The air between them was suddenly filled  
with eight sharp blades connected to chains.  
"Oh shit!" Twister cried. He barely managed to dodge four of the  
blades but there were too many. Three sliced through his clothes at his sides,  
grazing him, and he got caught in the shoulder by the eighth one. "Damn!" The  
blade had sliced though muscle like butter and the injury hurt like Hell,  
disrupting his concentration. His left arm hung uselessly.  
Mousse regarded Twister, "You do not fight very well. Even Ranma  
could have avoided that."  
"Buddy," Twister ground out, holding his bleeding shoulder, "I have  
never studied martial arts and I am still very green to fighting. What I _can_  
do now is the result of the Event. I _was_ planning to go easy on you." He  
narrowed his eyes. "I have never really been this hurt before and because of  
that...," The blue aura started shining, "The kid gloves are off."  
Mousse was surprised at the blue glow that surrounded Twister. It  
flared brightly and he had to turn his head. When he looked back he stared  
in shock. The shoulder he had hit had been Healed and Twister was moving it  
around, testing it. Twister looked at Mousse with a very faint blue glow  
in his eyes. The look of astonishment in Mousse's eyes took Twister's anger  
away but the blue aura stayed.  
"Mousse," He cheerfully called out, "Prepare to become Whipped Cream."  
This display of power prompted Mousse to launch his chain blades  
in an attempt to wound Twister again. Unfortunately, with his now power-boosted  
body, Twister easily avoided all eight blades this time and even managed to  
catch four of them as he dodged. Moving like lightning, he ran to Mousse  
and started running like a blue streak around him. The chains wrapped around  
Mousse like a steel cocoon, pinning his arms to his sides securely.  
Finishing the impromptu wrapping job, Twister tied one chain to  
the wrapped ones on Mousse's back, just below the head.  
Twister regarded the package at his feet, Mousse looked stunned.  
*Not surprising. I feel a little stunned myself.* He gripped the chain  
that he had just attached, and talked to Mousse brightly, "I just remembered.  
I haven't really looked around town yet. I think I'll do that right now."  
Twister's glow was gone but he was still able to run a good clip as he dragged  
the now cursing, chained Mousse behind him. "You can be my tour guide..."  
Twister called out as they went off into town._ _ _

___Shampoo watched as Twister dragged the helpless Mousse away.  
*Well, Mousse helped me by showing more of Twister's abilities to  
me.* She stared thoughtfully at the departing pair. *He did not go up in  
the sky but he did Heal himself. That is not good. It means he can take  
a lot more hits and still function with an uninjured body.* Worriedly,  
she pondered a statement Twister had said, *Never studied martial arts?  
And still he defeated Mousse? Easily, for that matter. That aura is strange  
as well.* Ponderingly she continued, *He mentioned something called the Event  
that had given him his abilities. Perhaps great-grandmother would know about  
that.*  
She heard something in the alley below her and looked down. She  
spotted the familiar form of Ryouga, lost as usual.  
An idea came to Shampoo. *Ryouga was at the Tendo home before I was  
humiliated. Maybe _he_ knows more about Twister.* She decided and dropped down  
cautiously in front of Ryouga.  
"Nihou Ryouga! Shampoo glad to see you." She smiled  
Ryouga looked a little startled that Shampoo would seek him out.  
"Why the visit Shampoo?" He asked loudly.  
Shampoo was unperturbed. "Shampoo have question to ask..."_ _ _

___Sighing wearily, Twister made it back to the Tendo residence.  
*Maybe I shouldn't have run that long. Dragging a load like that  
for three hours through town is tiring.* He chuckled, *That was old, yet  
inspired, what I did at the end there.*_ _ _

___Flashback:-------------------------------------------------------------------_ _ _

___Twister finally stopped in front of Shampoo's restaurant. Quickly,  
he compressed links in the chain he had used to drag Mousse all over town  
into a steel bar with his hands. Then, he bent this bar into a classic bow,  
like those put on Christmas presents, and fixed it on Mousse.  
Mousse was not in good shape. He would be having bruises from all  
the times Twister had made a particularly sharp turn, and scratches by being  
dragged on the ground for three hours, though the imprisoning chains had  
protected him a lot. He was currently unconscious.  
Twister looked at him, propped him up on a wall, adjusted Mousse's  
glasses, which had somehow stayed on, and left. Smiling like a maniac._ _ _

___End Flashback:---------------------------------------------------------------_ _ _

___He savoured that sight. After all, Mousse had been trying to kill him  
at the time.  
School had ended an hour ago so Akane, Ranma, and Nabiki were back  
already. They didn't miss his dusty appearance and the large, bloody tear on  
his shoulder where Mousse's blade had struck.  
Nabiki was shocked. "What happened to you?!"  
Twister sat down tiredly and looked straight up. "Let's summerize  
today. Hm. Played practical joke on Kunou. Check. Get chased around by a  
energy-draining, juvenile teacher. Check. Conduct financial affairs with  
resident of this house. Check. Drag love-crazed Mousse though city in chains  
after said person tries to kill me for insulting person Mousse is love-crazed  
for. Check." He paused. "I think that concludes today's events. Now, I shall  
collapse." Spreading his arms wide, he flopped backwards and closed his eyes.  
"Any other questions?"  
Ranma considered Twister's shoulder, "How badly did Mousse get you?  
The blood on that tear says he tagged you pretty good."  
Picking himself up, Twister sighed, "I was too cocky and when he threw  
his first assult I couldn't avoid the last blade and he disabled my arm."  
They all looked shocked, "This, as you can guess, ticked me off to say the least.  
I went blue and Healed my arm. Mousse was a _little_ concerned at that and at  
the few choice words I said to him. He then fired off another volley but I  
was powered-up by then and dodged it easily. I proceeded to then tie him up  
with said volley and dragged him all over town for three hours. I left him  
gift-wrapped at Shampoo's. I was upset, as you can tell."  
Shaking his head, Ranma replied, "Huh. He won't forgive that."  
Twister snorted, "He's _already_ wanting to kill me for embarrassing  
Shampoo. I don't think you can get much worse than that."  
Akane spoke up, "Well, you'd better get cleaned up." She indicated  
his dusty state. "Supper won't be much longer."  
Sitting up, he groaned, "Best thing, I've heard today. Hm. Make that  
second best." He grinned at Nabiki.  
She returned the grin, "Don't worry. It won't take long." Nabiki  
noticed everyone else's stares. "I'll tell you on Wednesday. That ok, Twist?"  
"Fine with me. Now if you'll excuse me..." He headed for the well  
deserved bath.  
Nabiki grinned at the attention on her. "You can wait, it's just some  
finance."  
Ranma turned his head to the side and muttered, "Oh great. This I  
can't _wait_ to find out about."_ _ _

___Chapter Nineteen  
\----------------_ _ _

___Tuesday morning was uneventful, Twister carried Nabiki's books for  
her to school, making everyone ask what she had on him. He turned a puzzled  
eye on them and said, "I'm just carrying some books. Sheesh!"  
Before he left, Nabiki asked him, "What are you doing today, anyway?"  
Twister scratched his head, "Well, I'm going to _try_ to make some  
more _friends_ today or else they'll become _enemies_." His expression  
soured, "Heck knows I've made plenty of those already." He thought a bit.  
"Likely, Ukyou first. She's only after Ranma. I'm not sure who else though.  
Maybe.... Nah. Well, you'd better get to class." He looked around. "Where's  
Kunou?"  
Nabiki chuckled, "Probably lying in wait for Ranma somewhere so he  
won't be surprised like yesterday."  
He shook his head, "Some things never change. Well, see you later."  
"You too. Good luck." Then she walked in the door.  
Twister stared after her for a few seconds, then shook his head  
and left._ _ _

___Wandering around and window shopping a bit, Twister finally found  
Ukyou's okonomiyaki restaurant. He glanced at the money he had borrowed,  
sorry, make that _loaned_, from Nabiki. He grinned at that thought. Nabiki  
definitely knew he was good for it but habit is hard to break. It was enough  
for something large anyway. He prepared himself and walked in.  
Walking around the restaurant he finally found a table and waited.  
It was a nice place inside and the food smelled delicious. Someone came  
up behind his seat and came around him to take his order. The huge spatula  
on her back marked her.  
"What do you care to order?" Ukyou asked. She was looking curiously  
at Twister's borrowed clothing, cleaned from yesterday's fight. It was likely  
something she had seen on Ranma before.  
He smiled at her and said, "Hi. Do you have a house special?"  
She responded to the friendly response and smiled as well, "Yes we  
do. Do you want that?"  
"Sure. I think it was recommended by Ranma but I can't remember." *This  
from someone with a perfect memory now.* "I wouldn't mind trying it anyway.  
The smell alone is great." He could see the curiousity building until it  
burst out.  
"How do you know Ranma?" Ukyou had never seen this person before.  
"I just arrived less than a week ago. I'm staying at the Tendo's  
now." He grimaced. "I came in kinda a rush and didn't bring much in clothing.  
That's why I'm wearing some of Ranma's clothes since you're wondering about  
it." Her blush made him grin. "I've had some bad encounters already so I'd  
thought to meet you in a friendly way. I've had few meetings that could've  
turned out better." He sighed.  
Ukyou was curious about that. "With who?"  
"I think the worst one will be Shampoo. She'll be trying to kill me."  
Ukyou looked a little shocked at that so he explained. "She was trying some  
magic cookies on Ranma. I sort of turned the tables on her and dunked  
her in the Tendo pond." Ukyou looked extremely _pleased_ now. "She made the  
most nasty threat to kill me. Probably because Ranma saw it all." He  
shrugged. "Ah well. Ranma at least won't have to deal with her for a while.  
A _long_ while I hope."  
Mirth was showing on Ukyou's face but didn't laugh at his predicament.  
"Who else? Oh." Realization dawned.  
"Yup. Mousse too. Though after I dragged him though town for about  
three hours, I don't think I'll worry about him for a while. This 'little' rip  
on my shoulder _he_ made before I took him sightseeing, was the reason I did  
it."  
Ukyou looked at the blood-stained rip and wondered aloud. "How  
come your arm doesn't look injured?"  
Twister grinned, "The trip I made had a few fringe benefits." His  
torso growled. "Oops."  
Grinning at the sound, Ukyou replied, "I'd better make that order  
you made. We'll talk some more after."  
Nodding, he replied, "Sure thing."_ _ _

___Ukyou came out of the kitchen with the delightfully smelling  
dish. On her way to his table, she accidentally tripped and the okonomiyaki  
flew off the plate. Not wishing to have to wait any longer, Twister  
hurriedly focused on it and it stopped in mid-air.  
He grinned. *Nothing like hunger to hone skills for catching flying  
objects.*  
Ukyou had regained her balance and was staring at the unsupported  
okonomiyaki. It slowly went over to her and hovered a second over the  
dish she still held and dropped on it. She stared at it and then, on a hunch,  
at Twister.  
He smiled innocently, "One of those fringe benefits."_ _ _

___"_Happosei_ brought you??" Ukyou looked incredulous.  
He sighed. "Yup. Unintentionally, but yes, he did." His eyes glowed  
blue so sightly Ukyou wondered if she was seeing things. "Also, another  
person whom I'd dearly love to forget."  
Ukyou looked inquiringly at him.  
"Happosei was _trying_ to summon a demon to forever annoy Ranma.  
Ranma hit him on the head and he botched the spell. Instead, he got  
some arch-demon called Malkon, who escaped the wards, and a little while  
later, me."  
Looking a little frightened, she asked, "What happened to that  
arch-demon? I would imagine even Happosei would have found it impossible  
to beat something like that."  
"_I_ beat him." Ukyou was surprised at that and looked as if he had  
gone mad. He explained. "Malkon and I were going to appear together  
due to the botched spell. That would be _bad_. As a solution, he threw  
me into something extremely powerful and most likely fatal to get rid of me.  
I somehow escaped it and appeared where Malkon had. My mind wasn't fully  
'here' if you get my drift. All I knew was a cold rage at Malkon. I used  
the abilities I gained in the Event to defeat him." He shuddered. "I _hope_  
he was destroyed."  
Ukyou was staring in awe at Twister, "You beat an _arch-demon_?"  
He nodded, "On the downside, I don't remember much of how I did it.  
Fragments I can recall and more vividly as I practice more."  
Nodding, she said, "That's understandable. Still, it is impressive."  
Chuckling, Twister continued, "I have a feeling I'll need all  
the power I _did_ get just to live around here." He looked at his empty  
plate and sighed. "Well, I'd better get going. That was a delicious meal  
and thank you for the conversation, even though I think I did most of  
the talking." He grinned.  
Ukyou smiled. "The pleasure was mine. Come any time if you need  
to talk with someone."  
"That may be every day then." He smiled at his remark. "Oh well,  
here's my money for the meal. And thanks again."  
She bowed. "Come back soon."_ _ _

___Feeling pleased with himself, Twister walked along the street.  
*That went well for a change. Better than having someone trying  
to beat you up.* He slowed down as he remembered something, *Malkon.  
I should make sure that he truly was destroyed. Or not.* Twister's  
face went grim. *Now how can I find out? Who, besides Happosei, would  
be able...* He stopped. *Of course. I thought of going to her earlier and  
I _wondered_ why. I'd better make myself _unnoticeable_ to avoid Shampoo while  
I'm doing it.* Starting in the proper direction, he continued, *A Master  
like Cologne will likely see though it but that's not who I need it for.*  
Walking for a while, he eventually neared his destination.  
*Time to walk the hidden path...* He chuckled and did so.  
Walking cautiously into the restaurant, he looked around. *Yikes.  
There's Shampoo.* The femme fatale was working on the tables. *Now... Cologne  
is likely in the back so I'd better start there.* Keeping an eye on Shampoo,  
Twister walked into the kitchen, looking for his target. She wasn't there.  
Then he heard a soap opera on television in another room. Grinning, he went  
in that direction.  
Cologne was watching one of her favorite soaps when something  
caught her attention. She couldn't figure out what it was. She scanned the  
room and noticed nothing unusual but a feeling the something still wasn't  
right was there. Then a voice softly called out, "Ahem. Are you Cologne?"  
Twister knew when he walked in and saw Cologne start to react to his  
presence that he wouldn't be hidden for long so he revealed himself first.  
Cologne was sightly startled but hid it well when she suddenly  
saw a handsome, young man by the side of the television _opposite_ of the  
door.  
She realized at once who he was. Not many could sneak up on her like  
that. "May I presume you are Twister?"  
The young man sighed, "My name precedes me. I'm honoured."  
Chuckling, Cologne replied, "My great-granddaughter would not be  
pleased if she found you here. Do you want me to call her off?"  
He shook his head, "I'm fairly certain even that would not be enough."  
Sighing he continued, "I'm here about another matter that I need your help  
with actually."  
This intrigued her, "What matter may that be?"  
Twister thought a moment before he replied, "It's about something  
Happosei did."  
She was beginning to get suspicious now, "What did Happy do _this_  
time?"  
"Around a week ago, he tried and botched a summoning spell. It may not  
be urgent but I need to know if a being he summoned was destroyed or not."  
A silent sinking feeling came over her, "What exactly did he summon?"  
"Me, for one," He smiled then grimly frowned, "The other was an  
arch-demon who called himself Malkon."  
Cologne paled sightly, "How come you think he _may_ have been destroyed?  
Those beings are extremely powerful."  
Twister sighed, "Because I attacked him while my mind wasn't exactly  
in a sane frame of mind and defeated him. I want to make certain he was  
destroyed or not." He frowned. "If not, I'll have to be prepared for him."  
Cologne was sightly shaken at the casual reference of attacking an  
arch-demon alone, "I don't think I have anything that would help you. Can you  
not sense him yourself?"  
"My powers are psionic. I don't think I feel anything threatening  
but if he moved far enough away then I wouldn't know." He sighed. "I hope  
he's not still around." He bowed at her. "Thank you for your time."  
"What do you plan to do about my great-granddaughter?"  
"Uhh. I'm not sure yet. Running away sounds good." Twister smiled.  
"Goodbye." And with that he walked out the door.  
The old Master shook her head, "Run away he says. He says he defeated  
a arch-demon and he says that."  
Shampoo entered the room, "Who you talk to great-grandmother?"  
"No one my child." She sighed. "Did you get anything about that  
Twister fellow?"  
"I talk to Ryouga. He mention Twister came from far off place by means  
of Happosei." She paused, "Also, when I listen to Twister when he fight Mousse  
he mention he got abilities from Event." Shampoo looked curious. "You know  
what that mean?"  
Cologne thought deeply, "Yes, I believe I remember something about  
that which you mention. It is believed to be the source of all Magic and Mind  
powers in all the universes. However, it is only found in the Void and  
no one has ever tried to enter it I believe." She stopped and her eyes widened.  
"Until now perhaps." Muttering to herself she said, "But he said psionic. Why  
no magic?"  
Shampoo looked a little frightened but determined, "Then Twister  
very powerful, great-grandmother? No matter. Shampoo find way to beat."  
He left out the door.  
Deep in thought, Cologne frowned, "Hopefully, that Twister finished  
the job. Unfortunately, demons can be _very_ hard to kill. I'd better  
be on the watch for strange happenings."_ _ _

___Chapter Twenty  
\--------------_ _ _

___Tuesday passed, and then Wednesday. Nabiki had completed the sale,  
albit with some raised eyebrows from the people she dealt with and hints that  
they might be wanting more of the same if she 'found' any more diamonds. Now  
Twister had quite a bit of money to spend on some clothes, even after insisting  
that Mr. Tendo take some money to pay for his residence there. Genma and  
Ranma had looked faintly guilty when he had done that.  
He waited till Thursday to go shopping with Ranma since he wasn't  
sure what to get or where to get it.  
"Thanks for coming along, Ranma. I have no idea where to go  
to get some clothes around here." He looked at his companion. "Though  
I think I'll pass on Chinese clothing for a while. I've been wearing this  
one far too long."  
Ranma kicked at a stone on the road, "No problem. I don't get out that  
often from the dojo after school and this is a good day to do it too." The fact  
that Nabiki had threatened him with some stuff she knew about him that he  
didn't want Akane to find out about was another, more persuasive, reason.  
Otherwise, he would preferred to have stayed at the dojo.  
"Hmm. Your generosity is boundless. Heh." Twister looked around  
at the stores around them, "Let's see. I've always liked blue, though some  
people say I look good in purple. Decisions, decisions." He grinned.  
Ranma did a double-take, "Wait a minute! Blue and purple?? Isn't  
that what you said the colors of Mind and Magic were?"  
Twister frowned. "Now there's a weird coincidence. Ah well.  
That's what I like. Can't do much about that." He shrugged.  
"I guess not. Well, I've think I've heard that store is good." Ranma  
pointed in a shop's direction.  
"Tally-ho then!" They marched off towards the store.  
As they got closer Ranma wondered out loud to himself, "I'm surprised  
Kunou hasn't attacked me yet. He thinks _I_ hung him on the school."  
"Well maybe he..." Twister saw a figure running towards them,  
"Speak of the devil." Ranma looked where Twister was looking and saw Kunou  
run up to a stop before them, wooden sword raised high.  
"HAH! So, you thought the Blue Thunder of Furinkan High would be  
scared of so easily, Ranma Saotome! Your dark magic cannot defeat those  
who fly with the gods in the heavens with their skill. I, Takewati Kunou, will  
defeat you and free the pig-tailed goddess from your clutches." Kunou  
prepared to attack.  
Twister and Ranma's eyes were half-closed in resignation.  
"Is he always like this?"  
Ranma sighed, "Always."  
"I pity you. I really do. I don't think I'd better do anything because  
he'll just think it's you anyway." Twister shrugged in helplessness. "Sorry."  
"I don't need help with this jerk. You'd better step back." Ranma  
got ready for Kunou.  
Stepping back as Ranma requested, Twister saw the fight start and  
waited for the victor to win. Glancing around, he froze at the sight of  
Shampoo, with maces in hand, running right at _him_!  
"Gurk!" was all he could manage. *Dang. Now what do I do? Too many  
people to do anything that my aura would show. Hmm. Time to see if practicing  
with catching moving objects has helped me any.*  
"Twister! Shampoo kill now!" Shampoo shouted.  
"What is this? Double teaming day? Sheesh!" He ducked the first  
swings of her maces and dodged away. "First Kunou vrs. Ranma, now  
Shampoo vrs. Twister. We definitely need a better promotion team." He spun away  
from her next strike.  
Lunging at him, she shouted, "Shampoo need no help!"  
Twister jumped right over Shampoo and landed ten feet behind her.  
"No. You most definitely do _not_ need more help. Any more help and I'd need  
a stretcher." He decided to get rid of the maces. "Wave bye-bye to your toys."  
He focused on the spheres.  
"What do you talk about dead man? Shampoo not..." She stopped talking  
as she started fighting her own maces to get them to stay in her hands.  
It looked like Shampoo was trying use Mexican percussion instruments.  
Finally, Twister had enough and yanked the maces out of her hands  
just as she was swinging them up. It looked like _she_ threw the maces  
herself. Shampoo knew better.  
She decided that she was still not ready to confront Twister.  
"Shampoo be back soon Twister! Then you die!" She jumped to a rooftop and  
bounced off.  
He sighed. "I wish she'd stop saying that. It's so depressing."  
"Oh...you get used to it." Ranma said behind him. Apparently, his fight  
with Kunou was over. Twister looked back and saw Kunou comatose on the sidewalk,  
people walking over him in their haste.  
"Riiight. Well, I guess the Master should know," He grinned at Ranma's  
face. "Shall we continue with what we were about to do? I'm dying for new  
clothes."  
The other waved for Twister to follow him, "Yeah. Might as well. Let's  
go."_ _ _

___Happosei was in his room brooding.  
*What am I going to do? That Twister boy is sure to put a damper  
on my fun around here. Especially since I'm the one who brought him here.*  
Happosei was wringing a panty in his hands with worry. *If only he had a  
weakness I could use but if he got angry he'll treat me like he did that  
arch-demon.* He sobbed. *What to do. What to do.*  
It took him a moment to notice but a mist was starting to form in  
front of him. He quickly backed away, wondering what it could be. The mist  
formed a squarish outline and slowly solidified.  
It was a plain, unadorned cardboard box with a lid on top.  
Peering cautiously forwards, Happosei looked closer at the box's top  
lid.  
It had writing on it.  
Now certain it wasn't likely to be anything bad he got close enough  
to read the writing. It said:  
\--------------------------------------------------------------  
| To: Happosei, Master of the Anything-Goes Martial Arts School|  
| From: Malkon, Arch-Demon Extraordinare of the Lower Depths of |  
| Hell. |  
\--------------------------------------------------------------  
"So he's alive is he? I wonder why he gave me this? Not to harm me,  
it could have done so already. Well, I might as well open it."  
Carefully, like a bomb-disposal officer, Happosei lifted the lid  
and looked inside.  
"Now what is this?" He wondered curiously.  
The inside held a large, familiar looking object. On top of this was a  
note. Happosei quickly snatched up the note and read it.  
He started to smile.  
Then he started to laugh happily._ _ _

___Twister was grinning evilly and rubbing his hands in the spare guest  
room. "New clothes! New clothes! Bwahahahahahahah!!!" He loomed over the pile  
of newly bought fashion on his bed.  
Nabiki put her hand on her face and sighed with great suffering.  
Ranma looked disgusted. "It's only clothing Twister."  
"Huh! _You_ haven't been wearing well-ventilated, bloodstained with _my_  
blood, clothing for the past few days. I'm getting tired of the reminder."  
Twister cackled over his booty again.  
"Hmp. Let 'im put something on or he'll drive us nuts." Ranma said.  
Twister's voice was muffled as his face was buried in clothing,  
"The squirrels gather outside. Waiting." He chuckled contentedly.  
Akane's voice came from outside in the hall, "Can you skate Twister?"  
Sighing, Twister stopped his joyous festivities, "Last time I checked.  
Why?"  
"Nabiki won a bet with someone and got four free passes to the indoor  
ice rink. We thought of going today since you have something to wear now."  
Ranma muttered, "Won or lost?"  
"Sure! Why not! Haven't gone in a while, I'm overdue." Twister grinned.  
"I'll get myself in gear and be ready in a sec." He paused in thought as he  
looked at the new pile of clothing. "It's deciding what to wear that's the  
killer..."  
After twenty minutes, the three outside were wondering if Twister  
as still alive.  
"Maybe Shampoo snuck in through the window..." Ranma suggested.  
"I think we would notice Ranma." Nabiki smirked. "Being quiet while  
attacking is not exactly her forte."  
"Ok ok! I'm ready!" Twister shouted though the door. The door opened.  
"Yow! The clothes _do_ make the man." Nabiki smiled.  
"Thank yew. Shall we go?" He extended his arm to Nabiki.  
"Let's." She wrapped her own arm in his and they walked ahead of  
Akane and Ranma.  
Ranma commented to Akane. "Alright. I can see that they sure are  
acting strangely together."  
Akane muttered, "Finally."_ _ _

___SWISHH!  
Twister had forgotten how fun it was to race on the ice. Too bad  
this was a public rink and he couldn't go too fast. His enhanced body was  
able to handle the ice much better than he used to be able to do. The result  
was that he was going crazy over what he could do _now_. People were starting  
to clap at some of the things he was doing but he didn't notice it was for  
him.  
He was about to rejoin the others and calm down for a while when he  
saw they had company. He could see Ranma struggling to stay standing, he still  
had problems with skating, while Akane faced a golden-haired girl and Nabiki  
was trying to back away from a tall, handsome young man. This made Twister see  
a little red as he easily remembered who the pair were, or rather, the Golden  
Pair were.  
*Time for action.* He speed-skated towards the Pair and used a little  
levitation to rapidly increase velocity. Timing it just right, he whistled  
and called out, "Hey! Golden Pair!" As they turned, he used both skates  
to rapidly slow him down at such an angle that he scraped ice from the rink  
and blew it towards the Golden Pair. One skate blade each.  
When he had used up all forward momentum, he stopped, skated to  
stand by Nabiki and said rather loudly, "Look! Frosted Flakes! I thought those  
only came in cereal boxes!"  
Frosted the Golden Pair were. Head to toe, the front part of their  
bodies looked like they had been in a deep-freeze too long.  
Nabiki, Akane, and Ranma laughed at the comment. As well as some  
of the passer-bys who knew the Pair well.  
The Pair brushed themselves off slowly and looked at Twister.  
Mikado Sanzenin calmly regarded him, "So. The one who was skating very well  
indeed on the ice." He glanced at Ranma and the others. "You are with  
them?"  
"Yup. That I am." Twister crossed his arms. "What, pray tell, were  
you trying to do a moment ago?"  
Mikado ignored that last question, to Twister's annoyance, and replied,  
"You think you are better on skates than I?"  
*For avoiding that last question, Mr. Mikado is going to pay big time.*  
Twister thought before answering him, "I don't really know. Care to try a test  
and find out?"  
The male half of the Pair queriously asked, "What sort of test?"  
Twister detailed what he had in mind, "A simple one. We both go to  
one end of the rink and go as fast as we can towards the other end. The first  
one to swerve away from hitting the wall loses."  
Thinking about it Mikado agreed, "Very well, we shall wait a few  
moments for others to get out of the way and then we shall start." He skated  
away to prepare the rink for the test by clearing people away with Azuka  
helping.  
Akane went up to Twister with a question on her face, "Why do you  
want to see who is better?"  
"I'm not sure. I just got the strongest urge to do something to him."  
He glanced at Nabiki, "I don't know why."  
"Do something to him?"  
Twister smiled secretively, "Trust me."_ _ _

___Chapter Twenty-One  
\------------------_ _ _

___The race would be short so people gathered on the walls to see the  
test between the well-known Mikado and that new skater who had done so  
well before, Twister.  
The two challengers were positioned at one end of the ice waiting  
for Azuka to make up her mind when to start.  
Twister commented to Mikado, "Last chance to admit defeat."  
Mikado looked faintly contemptuous, "I do not need to. All I have to  
do is watch you until you swerve away. I am the best."  
Twister smirked, "Okaayyy. Don't say I didn't warn you."  
From the middle of the ice and out of the two's path, Azuka finally  
decided to start.  
"Okay! Start on the zero!"  
Mikado and Twister got ready.  
"Three. Two. One. Zero!"  
They launched off. Twister slowly increased his speed until Mikado  
had all his attention on keeping up with him and looking at Twister.  
*His face is still calm. Well not for long.*  
Mikado on the other hand, was still confident. *We may be at both  
our top speeds but the one who swerves first loses and I will _not_ lose!*  
They were almost at the end of the rink when Mikado's calm was  
starting to fray.  
*When will he swerve? No matter, I _will_ defeat him.*  
Twister counted down, *Face plant manouver in three. Two. One.  
Gotcha sucker!*  
With a meter of distance left from the wall, Twister used his levitation  
and TK to do something impossible.  
He instantly turned ninety degrees, continued without losing  
momentum and slowly braked.  
Mikado did not have that advantage.  
****WHAP****  
*And we HAVE _FACEPLANT_!! The crowd goes wild!* Twister chuckled  
and then put on a sad face as he went over by the Mikado-depression in the  
wall. He bent over the unconscious Mikado and sorrowly sighed, "Well you didn't  
swerve first. You win." And then he grinned. The crowd watching looked a  
little stunned but some were laughing at what had obviously been a set-up.  
Ranma, Akane, and Nabiki, standing where the pair had started,  
included.  
"He never lets up...does he?" Ranma gasped when he caught his breath.  
He was more than happy that Mikado got humiliated by Twister because of that...  
incident. Ranma still gritted his teeth over that when he thought about it.  
"That sense of humour..." Nabiki smiled and shook her head.  
Akane looked at the damaged wall, "Mikado certainly deserved it." She  
stated firmly.  
Twister had skated a little distance away and was bowing to the crowd.  
"Thank you. Thank you. No applause please. Well, maybe a little."  
Azuka poked Mikado back to awareness.  
"Are you awake? Are you awake? Are you awake?"  
"Uhh... Yes, you stupid woman! I'm awake now!" He looked furious.  
"Where is he?"  
Azuka pointed in Twister's direction.  
He collected himself and stood up. Twister's back was to him. He  
didn't care. With Azuka following, he picked up speed.  
Nabiki saw Mikado gunning for Twister, "Look out!"  
Twister was uncomprehending at first, then he started to turn around.  
Too late. Mikado kneed him in the side in passing and he collapsed.  
Shouting out, Mikado declared, "I will kiss all the females in your  
party, fool!" He skated towards the others.  
Bad move.  
Recovering, Twister got up. *Wanna bet?* He concentrated. *Ice, be not  
nice.*  
The ice before the Golden Pair cracked and they tripped on it. They  
slid to a stop around the center of the rink. A square ramp of ice suddenly  
ripped up from the rink between Twister and the Pair. Gaining speed, Twister  
skated up the ramp. When he was launched into the air, he spun like a top with  
both legs outstretched, blades out.  
Mikado spread his arms wide and dodged to the side. One blade sliced  
through both sleeves and the chest area but missed the skin. His shirt was  
now falling apart. Twister landed nearby, stopped, and rushed towards Mikado._ _ _

___*Time to use my special move.* Mikado decided and started his Dance  
of Death.  
Twister ran into a whirlwind of punches and was caught in the move.  
*Ya! Jeez!* He was able to block half the blows coming at him but the  
damage was increasing. *Well then! Let's make things more interesting!*  
Ranma remembered this move well, "Oh great. Can Twister handle this?"  
Brow wrinkled in puzzlement as she watched the blur of the spinning  
manouver, Akane said, "Mikado didn't go this fast when he fought _you_ Ranma.  
He's still going faster! What is...?"  
Nabiki understood. "I think doing something like _this_ to someone  
named after a kind of tornado is _bad_. As Mikado is now realizing."  
Twister suddenly shot out of the spin on his skates, waving his  
arms trying to regain his balance. Nabiki rushed over and supported him.  
He didn't look too steady.  
"I think I shouldn't have done that so fast." He said shakily.  
Ranma and Akane looked at the now visible Mikado. As before, when  
he had done this to Ranma, he was unconscious. However, unlike Ranma's 518  
punches, Twister hadn't hit him once. What he did do, was increase the spin so  
much that Mikado had blacked out and Mikado's skates had started digging a hole in  
the ice. He was now in a hole that was as deep as his neck. Only his drooping  
head was visible.  
Wincing, Twister checked out his injuries. "Owch. That smarts. I'll  
have to wait until getting back before Healing myself." He shook his head.  
"He made me so dizzy I had trouble dodging his blows."  
"Well, I wouldn't worry about it." Ranma was puzzled. "I don't think  
I've ever seen you physically punch anyone yet, Twister. Why not?"  
For a reply, Twister sighed, "Remember Ryouga? I'm afraid I might  
do something a little too hard by accidentally using TK when punching or kicking.  
If I did..." He shuddered. "There might not be much left or I might hurt  
someone else by accident."  
Nodding, Ranma replied, "Huh. I guess you can't learn anything in  
martial arts until you _know_ you can control it."  
"Yup." To himself, Twister wondered, *Why does Ranma look happy about  
that?*  
Nabiki glaced at the now devastated ice rink. "Well I guess it's  
time to go. Unless you care for a rematch?" She smirked.  
He groaned in reply._ _ _

___They returned home later. Twister was just beginning to Heal himself  
the slower, but less tiring, way and sat down to let it work.  
He sighed. "Well, I think I've fought almost everyone. Anyone I've  
missed?"  
"Kodachi. Principal Kunou. A few others." Ranma ticked off his fingers  
for each one, offhandedly.  
"Gah! I hope I don't encounter them in a bad way." Twister was almost  
done Healing. "Well, it was a nice time while we were skating without  
interruptions. Thanks Nabiki." He smiled at her, then yawned. "Hm. Must be more  
tired than I thought. I'd better go to bed. 'Night"  
Nabiki waved after him. "Good night. And thanks for rescuing me tonight."  
"Tis but mine duty, fair one." He chuckled and went up the stairs.  
Reaching his door, Twister stretched. *Whoo. That little fight  
tired me more than I thought.* Head drooping, Twister entered the room and  
flopped down on the bed, arms close at his sides and on his back. He fell  
asleep.  
SPLASH!!  
"Blub! WHAT THE...?" Twister woke up in shouting, wide awake with  
adrenaline in his veins.  
Happosei was in the doorway, holding a big bucket which he had just  
emptied on Twister, soaking him everywhere. He looked disappointed.  
The rest of the household by that time had gathered around the doorway  
and Ranma, Genma, and Soun were holding the old Master. Unnecessarily. Happosei  
didn't look like he was in any hurry to leave.  
"He promised that it would work!" Happosei cried out.  
Ranma shook him, "What are you talking about, you old lech?"  
Soaked, Twister sat up on the bed, "_He_ promised?" He asked queriously,  
"What 'he' are...you...talking...about?" Twister's voice wandered off as  
realization formed. "Tell me you are _not_ talking about Malkon!" He shouted  
at Happosei. Then he froze in shock.  
Twister's blue aura had appeared involuntarily and the others gathered  
by the doorway were staring at the display occurring before them. The blue  
aura sprang into blue flame that surrounded Twister. It was not hot, but it  
consumed the water that Twister was drenched in with an unusual effect.  
Wherever water evaporated, purple flames started appearing and spreading  
amongst the blue ones. Even the water on the bed was affected and added  
to the purple fire. Twister was barely visible at this point, it appeared  
he had been rendered unconscious and was lying on the bed again. Filling the  
room now, purple and blue fires warred with each other for domination. The  
group outside the door backed away fearfully. There was still no heat and now  
nothing could be seen inside the room. Then, for a brief moment, it seemed  
that the flames merged together, creating a purple-blue inferno that felt  
much more powerful, even though the flames stayed the same size. It broke  
apart again and it appeared the purple flames had won, for the blue ones were  
starting to vanish. When the flames were all purple, they started dying  
down. The flames shrank into the visible purple aura of the figure lying on the  
bed and even that vanished eventually.  
Everybody slowly gathered by the doorway again. Akane and Nabiki  
were concerned about the display and what it had done to Twister. The two rushed  
into the room and checked the bed. They stared in shock at what they saw.  
Twister came around then.  
"Uhhh... What the heck happened?"  
Nabiki paled. Akane swallowed, "Um. Twister. I think you should  
get ready for a shock."  
"Why? What happened?" Twister was concerned and a little scared.  
Nabiki got the room's mirror and gave it to Twister without a word,  
still pale-faced.  
Getting more agitated by their reactions, Twister looked into the  
mirror and froze.  
Akane sighed. "I guess Malkon found the cursed springs of Jusenkyou  
and sent some of it to Happosei."  
Twister stared into the mirror. Twister had seen that face before,  
except now it didn't have a pig-tail and was a little slimmer. "Oh joy. Twins."  
She fainted._ _ _

___Chapter Twenty-Two  
\------------------_ _ _

___Nabiki whirled on Happosei, "Why did you do _this_?!" She pointed  
at the unconscious, now-female Twister furiously.  
Looking unrepentant, Happosei replied, "Why not? Now there's another  
beautiful girl for me!" Happosei smiled gleefully.  
Uncharacteristically, Nabiki started advancing on Happosei with a very  
unpleasant look in her eye. Happosei saw this and paled, Master or no Master.  
Akane saved him by slipping by and grabbing Nabiki.  
"Calm down Nabiki. There's no point in doing anything to him now.  
The damage is done. It can't be helped."  
"But I would feel _so_ much better," Nabiki ground out, still eyeing  
Happosei.  
"Come on." Akane walked her over to the prone form of Twister and  
had her sit down. "You'd better be here when he...er...she wakes up. It  
should make her feel better."  
"I'll stay too." Ranma volunteered. "For obvious reasons."  
Sighing, Nabiki calmed down, "Thanks Ranma."  
Akane smiled, "You two have gotten close haven't you?"  
Nabiki stared at the people grouped at the door until they left before  
talking, "Yeah, I wouldn't have believed it but I think we have sis." She sighed.  
"Doomed." Then she smiled at Twister, "But at least in a funny sort of way.  
In this house, something like this was bound to happen sooner or later."  
Akane smiled, "At least Twister's shown similar signs though I don't  
think he's realized it yet." She frowned at Ranma who was out of hearing for  
the moment. "Unlike _some_ people I could name."  
Ranma sneezed and looked confused._ _ _

___Weird images swam though Twister's head before suddenly jerking awake.  
The sun was rising in the horizon and the sleeping forms of Ranma and Nabiki  
were visible close by. Twister wondered why they had slept in the guest room  
until memory returned in an unpleasant flash.  
She looked down at herself and groaned.  
The noise wake up the two guardians.  
"Are you ok?" Nabiki asked softly as she rubbed sleep from her eyes.  
Twister just put her head in her hands and groaned again.  
Ranma snorted, "I don't think that reassured him, Nabiki."  
Lifting her head up and in a slightly stunned voice, sighed, "Well,  
I've already had my body changed once already. Well," She glanced down, "Not  
_this_ dramatically..." Looking back up she continued, "I think I'm ok. Just...  
give me time to adjust to this. I think you can understand _that_, Ranma."  
"No kidding."  
"Where is Happosei?" Twister calmly said.  
Nabiki wasn't fooled. "I already thought of that Twister. Akane  
held me back and she was right. Get back at the guy who _gave_ him the water  
in the first place."  
Twister's lips tightened, "Malkon. I should have been ready."  
"How could you have been? You're still adjusting here and you were  
not even sure he had survived." Nabiki shook her head. "It's not your fault."  
"Saying that is easy. Feeling that is another." She sighed and then  
paused, "I can tell I can't use my psionic powers in this form but I can't  
get rid of this feeling that I'm...whole." Twister looked puzzled.  
"I wonder what those weird flames were all about." Ranma mused.  
Standing up in now-loose clothing, Twister shook her head. "I don't know  
what that was about. What I do need to do is take a walk." She thought for a  
second. "In this form, I think. I'd better get used to it. There's no point in  
crying over spilt milk." Glancing at Nabiki, she added, "Alone. I just need to  
think by myself for a while."  
"I understand. Just watch out. You look exactly like Ranma-chan  
now, minus the pig-tail of course." Nabiki tiredly smiled. "We have to get ready  
for school too." She got up and went with Ranma to the door. "I hope you feel  
better later." She left with Ranma.  
Twister sighed after they left. Unused to the different setup of her new  
body, she took a while to be able to walk around without feeling funny. Leaving  
the room and walking downstairs she snuck out of the house and just started  
walking down the street; not thinking much about the new situation and letting  
her mind go blank for a while.  
After a lot of walking, she came upon a strange scene that drew her  
out of her blank state. On the sidewalk ahead of her was a strange guy.  
He was kneeling and chanting some strange words out of a scroll. He stopped,  
looked around, and for some strange reason looked disappointed.  
Curious at this somehow familiar looking person, she walked up to him.  
On further inspection Twister saw he had...candles on his head??  
*Now who has _candles_ on his head?* Twister still couldn't dredge up  
the memory, *No perfect recall. Great.*  
Now aware of her scrutiny, the guy stood up and looked embarrassed.  
Before he could start explaining, Twister queried in her now higher voice,  
"What are you doing?"  
Nervous at this strange female in front of him, he sputtered out,  
"C-casting a s-spell." He looked disappointingly at the scroll, "Or at least  
trying to."  
Intrigued, Twister asked, "You know magic?"  
"Yes! No! Um..." He looked down. "Trying to anyway."  
Looking down at what he was looking at, Twister saw a book.  
"What's that?"  
"Beginner's Guide to Magic." He said sourly. "It hasn't done me much  
good."  
"Can I look at it?" Twister tried to look cute.  
Nervous again, the strange guy nodded. "Sure. Go ahead."  
Picking up the strange book, Twister flipped though the pages with  
interest. Spotting a harmless spell that required a only a gesture, she tried  
it.  
Nothing happened. Twister looked disappointed.  
The guy smiled nervously, "You see?"  
Looking near the beginning, she found another spell. It was a rhyme  
for a light. Just for fun, not expecting anything this time, she spoke  
it out loud.  
"Power beyond imagination,  
Spell to help with sight,  
Give me now illumination,  
Shine _forth_ magic light!"_ _ _

___Twister smiled, "Not too bad. It rhymes fairly well at least." She  
looked at him when no response came.  
The guy was staring above her head.  
Puzzled at his reaction, Twister looked up and gaped. Above her head  
was a ball of light, about a foot in diameter, shining a purple light.  
"Wha wha wha.... What the heck??"  
"You did it!" The guy seemed stunned.  
A little dazed, Twister muttered, "I must have. Now how do I turn it  
off?" Looking at the light above her gave her an idea, "Maybe if I will it  
off...?" Doing so, the light vanished. Staring at the now empty space,  
realizations dawned on her. "The Event. Mind _and_ Magic. Male _and_ female.  
They are both separate! Rhyme spells for _me_ work! Yes!" She was so excited  
by this new revelation that she hugged the guy unthinkingly, dropped the book,  
and ran off back to the Tendo residence, crying, "Thanks a lot!"  
Hikaru Gosunkugi was left staring after the girl who had made one  
of the book's spells function. "It _can_ work!" He cried suddenly and grabbed  
the book with hope restored in his eyes._ _ _

___Chapter Twenty-Two  
\------------------_ _ _

___Smiling grimly, Twister came back to the Tendo home.  
*Magic. Now that brings a whole new light on things.* She paused.  
*That could also be the reason Malkon sent that water. He _must_ have realized  
that this would happen.* Twister frowned. *Also, he didn't strike me as the  
wasteful type. No, he was very intelligent. Given time he wouldn't strike  
in useless anger. Demons have always been told as power-hungry in most  
stories that I've read and that brings a _nasty_ thought.* She shuddered.  
*Psionic power would be useless to him; he's a being of magic. If my power in  
_this_ form is equal, as it must likely be to my male side, then...he'll try  
to take it for himself. How? Hmm. Not in a very pleasant way I bet. I'd better  
start preparing myself.* She continued to mull over this as she entered the  
house.  
Kasumi saw her enter. "Are you all right Twister?" She looked a little  
worried.  
Twister sighed, "If Ranma can handle it so can I."  
"I made some hot water for you to change back."  
"Thanks Kasumi, I'll..." A chilling thought came over her. "...do it  
in an hour. There's something I think I have to do first."  
Puzzled, Kasumi nodded, "All right."  
Walking quickly upstairs, Twister went into her room.  
*I can't _believe_ I forgot that. Practically every magic-based novel  
I've read has had scrying spells to watch enemies. The only solution was  
counter-spells. Which I had better make quickly or Malkon will know exactly  
what I'm doing.* Sitting down, Twister tried to consider all possible  
methods of spying with magic.  
One: Normal sight.  
Two: Normal hearing.  
Three: Using animals to see with their senses.  
Four: Magical constructs instead of animals.  
She finally gave up on specifics. *Hmm. Why not just cast a spell  
that prevents him from spying _period_. A good all-round shielding spell that  
would prevent him from extending his senses into the town. That would cover  
all bases.* Twister had to smile slightly, *Why do I feel like I'm getting too  
used to this?*  
After forty-five minutes, she finally came up with a, hopefully,  
suitable rhyme. *I think visualization is important. Also, how much  
strength to put into the spell. I guess that light was so weak a spell I didn't  
even realize I had made any effort.* Twister calmed herself and saw in her  
mind her spell as a _very_ large, domed shield around the town and called out  
the rhyme.  
"Evil magic, stay away,  
By power strong and cannot fool,  
Turn around, I now shall say,  
Within my sphere of rule._ _ _

___Sight be blinded, ears be stuffed,  
No creatures can be used,  
Malign power, now handcuffed,  
Shall not now be abused."_ _ _

___Force drained out of Twister in a, now, noticeable flow. Trying to  
make sure it was strong, she managed to place a lot of her power into the  
stream. It stopped finally and Twister was surprised that she could sense the  
now-created dome of protection around the town.  
*Not bad for an _extremely_ new beginner. I hope it works. It _should_.  
Most of its form came from what I intended even though that rhyme was needed.*  
Twister slowly stood up. The spell had drained her more than she  
thought and she was now a little tired. Not surprising. The spell protected  
the _entire_ town from scrying eyes. She just hoped Malkon didn't know much,  
or rather, _anything_, about electronics. _That_ would be fun preventing.  
*I think it's time to become myself again. Magic promises to be  
fun though.* She chuckled. *Kuuuuuunou. Nyuk nyuk nyuk.* Twister started  
to go get that hot water Kasumi talked about, amused by that last thought._ _ _

___Malkon was both pleased and annoyed.  
He was in a wooded area as human settlements annoyed him. A recently  
made hole had been filled with water by him and Malkon had been staring  
at the pond with inhuman patience to get the information he had sought.  
He chuckled.  
*Well, that was certainly quick. Only after...what? Two? Three hours  
of being awake?* Malkon sighed. *At least I saw what I wanted to see. Good  
to have a theory confirmed.* He considered the purple-tinged barrier that  
had sprung up to block his magical sight. *Quite strong indeed. Perfect.  
Twister's magical abilities match in power with the psionic ones. In vastly  
different ways of course but matched all the same.* The image of the female  
Twister came up in his mind again. *And very pretty as well. Always a bonus.*  
Malkon stood up and brushed the leaves off his robe. He shook his  
head.  
*I am just surprised Twister realized I must have been watching.  
Not just formidable in power but in intelligence. This should be quite  
a struggle to get the magical power I sensed.* He chuckled quietly. *I told  
_her_ when we were in the Void that I was bored and was looking for some fun.  
I got that indeed, though 'challenge' likely fits this situation better.  
'Existance-threatening' is another.*  
He paused while considering what to do next. A head-on encounter  
with Twister would definitely be a Bad Idea.  
*I had better create a power base first. In this China there _must_  
be some formidable warriors I can 'recruit'. I'll also need some low-level  
demons to back them up. Then, I can plan on getting that which I desire. After  
I get that, nothing will be able to stop me.* Malkon smiled. *I have not had  
such an interesting opponent for millennia. Timing is everything. If I wait too  
long, I may never be able to defeat Twister. Pity it must end fairly soon.*  
The laugh he released scared off all wildlife for a mile._ _ _

___In the kitchen, Twister asked Kasumi where that hot water was.  
"It's over on the burner, in the kettle. I kept it hot, not boiling."  
Picking up the kettle, Twister replied, "Thanks Kasumi. Um." She  
paused, looking a little fearful.  
"What's wrong?"  
"I thought about what happened last time. Flambe. But...that might  
have been the initial reaction and not what will happen every time." Twister  
sighed. "Acid test time." She poured the water on herself.  
The normal change occurred.  
Twister looked down at himself, "That's a relief." He wiped water from  
his eyes.  
Kasumi smiled, "The first flames didn't do anything so I wasn't  
terribly worried."  
"It still puts my mind at ease. Speaking of said member, I think I'm  
going to use it right now. No rest for the weary." He smiled to belie his  
words and left to go back to his room again.  
In his room, Twister thought about what he should do.  
*I think I'll make another diamond just in case I forget and need  
money later. Then I'll think about what I should try magic-wise since it  
_is_ new for me to use at the moment.* That decided, he readied himself for  
making the diamond. Focusing his mind, he created a small vacuum in which  
to work. Then he commanded only the carbon atoms from the CO2 he knew was  
in the air to separate and join in the crystal pattern he was creating  
inside the vacuum. The free oxygen atoms separated by this action quickly  
found their brothers in flaming glory around the vacuum, making what looked  
like a ball of fire in mid-air. Twister had done this before but he noticed  
something obviously different from before.  
The ball of fire was a LOT bigger now.  
He checked what he was doing and realized that he was making the  
diamond a lot faster now. He hadn't noticed because he had used the same  
amount of effort on his part.  
For some reason Twister had gotten stronger in his psionic power.  
He pondered this and found the answer. *I was only Mind before. Now  
that the Magic is accessible to me now it seems to have increased the power  
available on both sides. That must have been why I felt whole when I woke up.  
A new facet of my being had opened, allowing me to use more power in the  
other facet. My powers are still equal to each other, Mind is just greater  
than what Mind alone had been. Useful.*  
As a result, the diamond was now as large as the last one he had made  
for Nabiki to sell.  
Twister pondered this diamond. *Magic can be used to enchant items  
I believe. I'll just form this diamond into a disk and see what I can  
do with it.* He smiled. *And I think I know what to try first...*_ _ _

___Much later, Ranma walked into the Tendo home, backpack on his back.  
Alone.  
*Hmp. What does Nabiki need to know that only Akane could tell her?*  
He threw the backpack into it's usual place when he entered the room he and his  
father shared. *Not like _she_ would know anything useful. Unless...,* Ranma  
blinked as he realized something, *Unless...it has something to do with  
Twister's new _curse_! Great. Nabiki must think Akane's an 'expert' because of  
me.* He fumed a little at the idea as he left and walked past Twister's room.  
He stopped.  
*What the...?*  
Walking backwards, Ranma came to Twister's open door again and was  
puzzled at what he saw inside the room.  
The newly female form of Twister was staring at a crystalline disk  
as she sat cross-legged on the floor. Not moving. Not expressionless though.  
Her face showed...grief? Despair?  
*That's not like the guy...* Pausing for a moment, Ranma decided to  
find out what was bugging Twister.  
"Hey Twister. What's with you?"  
The still form blinked and slowly looked at a slowly becoming worried  
Ranma. "Oh. Hi, Ranma. Nothing much." The tone in Twister's voice didn't match  
the words she spoke.  
"Yeah right. What's bugging _you_ so much?"  
Twister picked up the disk and started flipping it over and over in  
her hands. After watching this for half a minute, Twister started talking  
to Ranma in a hesitant voice, still looking at the disk.  
"While you might be used to this Ranma...I'm not. '_This_' is not just  
the cursed water....though that's part of it. Chucked from my universe, my  
_home_, into another, almost killed by an arch-demon, gaining powers along with  
a different body, fighting battles like ones I used to _read_ about, and  
now...this. Even if I find a way home, I can't go back in _either_ form. Too  
much of my male body has changed. I've handled all this mostly by not thinking  
about it and just finding out what all I can do now." She paused.  
"Until...ten minutes ago."  
Suddenly, Twister's body tensed up and she gripped the disk with a  
white knuckled hand. Raising the other, she slammed it into the floor, denting  
it, while shouting...  
"_WHY_ DID THIS HAPPEN TO ME!?"  
She slumped loosely over the disk after that, tears forming in her eyes.  
Shocked, Ranma paused a moment before hesitantly walking over and  
gently placing a hand on Twister's shoulder, causing her to look up in surprise.  
"I guess...I haven't seen it that way." Ranma confessed. "You came here  
and saved Ak...us when _I_ couldn't from that Malkon creep. You were to able  
to fight well because of something powerful and not through years of training.  
That made me a little...resentful I guess. I didn't think about your side."  
Wiping moisture from her eyes, Twister commented, "I'd wondered why you  
seemed...distant to me." Her spirits started to come back up and she added, "I  
guess should be grateful that I'm alive and have a good shot at getting back  
a life." Twister smiled. "Thanks Ranma."  
"Yeah...well...," Ranma was embarrassed because of his revelation to  
Twister and took back the hand on Twister's shoulder to rub the back of his  
head. He tried to get off topic, "How come you look like me when I'm female  
anyway?"  
Standing up, Twister blinked at the question, "Well...it wasn't exactly  
a normal change to begin with. But...it's likely because I know of only one  
person who changes into a woman, hint hint," Ranma wasn't sure how to react to  
that comment, "and that thought likely influenced the magic somehow." She  
shrugged, "That's _my_ best guess and so now we're both in the same boat."  
"Huh. Yeah, I guess we are at that."  
"At least we can understand each other pretty well on that point."  
Twister chuckled and extended a hand to Ranma. "Friends now?"  
Ranma considered the outstretched hand for a second before slowly  
bringing up one of his own to complete the handshake.  
"Sure. Why not?"  
"Great!" Twister chuckled. "At least you won't have to worry about  
me attacking you over some girl like most other guys you know."  
Snorting at first at that truth, Ranma had to smile back when they  
finished the handshake.  
"True. That's a definite plus."  
Remembering about the disk, Twister suddenly walked out of the room  
saying, "Let me change back and I'll show you and the others something neat!"  
Blinking, Ranma wondered what Twister was up to as he left the  
room as well.  
*What's _he_ got planned?*_ _ _

___Twister had changed back and was now heading towards the eating table  
where he could hear Ranma, and the returned Akane and Nabiki, talking at the  
moment. He thought about what had happened a few minutes ago.  
*Jeez. I was _really_ depressed there before _Ranma_, of all people,  
got me out of that dark mood. Never been that down before. Then again, this  
isn't like it was back home either.*  
Trying to get his mind of that train of thought, Twister examined the  
diamond disk he had made. *Maybe I shouldn't have tried. But I did and at least  
I finally got it to work. I didn't realize how many tries I would have to make.  
Tired me out though I didn't realize it while talking to Ranma.*  
He finally walked into the dining area and the three seated by the  
table saw him arrive.  
"You work it out Twister?" Nabiki looked concerned at Twister's  
tired state.  
"Yeah. I've had to be flexible for a while, this doesn't exactly  
change that." He sighed. "I found something to keep me occupied anyway."  
He pulled out a crystal-looking disk from a pocket and placed it on the  
table.  
"What _is_ that thing anyway?" Ranma was curious.  
Instead of answering, Twister touched the disk and clearly said,  
"And now for something completely different." At the disk.  
The three were wondering what he was doing until light gathered  
above the disk and resolved into a semi-transparent form.  
It was Twister's new female self.  
Suddenly, the image spoke as the watchers gaped, "Testing, testing,  
one two three... Good. This darn thing finally worked." Twister's  
image gave a victory sign. "Bet this comes as a shock. Apparently,  
while in female form I can use _magic_ instead of psionics so I can do _this_  
now. Wicked, huh? I think the Event gave me the potential to use both in  
the beginning but I could only use Mind because they don't seem to _work_  
together. The cursed water allowed the Magic part to come into play so now my  
_full_ power has been unlocked. I have an easier time with Mind now as  
well, this disk is diamond I created today. Well, I think time's up.  
And I bet you thought I couldn't surprise you any more." The figure  
smirked, waved, and shimmered out of existence.  
The three were still gaping and Twister had to laugh at the sight.  
"Ah, the look on your faces..." He chortled.  
"W-when did you find _this_ out?" Ranma got out.  
"I was walking down a street and saw somebody, with _candles_ on his  
head, trying something magical. Without success. He let me look in some  
magic book and I read a rhyme aloud. Darn thing put a light on above my head.  
Literally. I realized what had happened and knew that rhyme was the key to  
my kind of magic."  
Akane and Ranma both said together, "Gosunkugi."  
Twister nodded, "I remembered as soon as I became myself again."  
Nabiki shook her head, "This should liven things up around here. As if  
it needed it."  
"Well, it does put a plus on my new situation." He sighed wearily, "It  
_is_ tiring. I really need to eat something that gives me more calories so  
I can do more stuff without draining myself each time. Kasumi's cooking  
is great but I need something more."  
Ranma thought for a second then smiled. "Well...if you don't mind doing  
something; I have an idea. Your treat."  
Akane looked peeved and crossly said, "Ranma, you _like_ doing that,  
_don't_ you?!"  
Eyebrow raised, Twister asked, "Am I not going to like this?" _ _ _

___Chapter Twenty-Three  
\--------------------_ _ _

___"I was right. I'm not going to enjoy this." Twister said, embarrassed.  
"Just follow my lead. It's not _that_ bad." Ranma-chan said beside  
her.  
They looked like twins with the exception of Ranma's pig-tail. The two  
were walking besides each other and people's heads were turning as they passed  
by. Men's especially. The fact that they looked very attractive, young, and  
cute together likely had a lot to do with that fact. Despite wearing men's  
clothing. On the other hand, it could have enhanced the look.  
"I'm just glad you didn't have us dress up to do this."  
Looking indignant, Ranma-chan replied, "I don't enjoy it _that_ much.  
Just the food. Even though I've _had_ to do that on occasion, I don't like it."  
Smiling, Twister commented, "You've _done_ that? Oh, right." Smirk.  
"I wouldn't comment. _You_ might have to sooner or later." Ranma  
growled.  
"I'm kidding! If you had to, you had to." Twister continued softly,  
"Sometimes you have no choice..." She shook her head. "Anyway, are we almost  
there yet?"  
Ranma-chan stopped before a store open to the street. "Here it is.  
Start acting cute."  
Wearing a serious face for a moment, Twister replied, "Yes sir! We  
shall achieve our objective!" Then she went into cute mode. "Golly! Let's  
go in!" And practically danced and skipped in.  
Ranma-chan stared after her before walking in herself.  
"Should've realized he'd ham it up," she muttered._ _ _

___A little while later, they walked out with some chocolate on their  
faces. This did not help to diminish the cute factor.  
Twister was waving inside, "Thank you!" She smiled happily.  
Ranma-chan was right on her heels. "Thank you!"  
They then started walking away and waited a minute before wiping  
the chocolate off.  
"I like eating sweets like that and this allows me to do it safely  
but..." Ranma-chan looked incredulously at Twister, "How did you _eat_ that  
much???"  
Looking a little bashful, Twister said, "My body looks like yours  
but my metabolism is the same as my male body. I told you that I don't  
_need_ to eat if I don't use my powers or exert myself. Apparently, I can  
also store that energy when I don't need it." Placing a hand over her stomach  
she went on, "I wanted to eat that high-calorie stuff till I was full so  
that I wouldn't have to worry about being wasted after I do something special.  
Unfortunately, I also seem to digest food a _lot_ faster." Twister chuckled.  
"It helped my wallet that those guys serving us gave us free sundaes. I  
guess they figured that a hyper-active girl like me needed a lot of food  
just to keep moving."  
"Think you'll need to do that again?"  
"I might have to if Malkon's around." Twister frowned. "Practicing  
the magic half of me now will take a lot of energy." She grinned. "Know  
any all-you-can-eat places?"  
Ranma-chan snorted, "They won't letcha in after the first time."  
"Not if I alternated between forms and acted _really_ cute in this  
one." Twister debated.  
"Ranma!" Cried a familiar voice.  
Ranma-chan was resigned to it. Twister was wary of it.  
"Hi Shampoo." Ranma-chan replied cautiously.  
Shampoo's attention was all on Ranma-chan as she leaped to land in front  
of Ranma-chan, totally ignoring the almost exactly-looking Twister. The pig-tail  
had identified Ranma.  
"Want to go with Shampoo on date?" She smiled.  
"I thought you were trying to kill Twister." The person mentioned was  
not pleased with this reminder and made a face at Ranma-chan.  
"Shampoo have plenty time for that! Now you date Shampoo?"  
"Well, I'm glad she doesn't _quite_ have a one-track mind." Twister  
said sourly.  
Shampoo whirled at this strange female voice which insulted her.  
"Who you, not nice girl?" What she saw was a mirror image of Ranma-chan's  
face which understandingly confused Shampoo when she registered the similarity.  
Twister chuckled because of Shampoo's face, "Two, two, two for the  
price of one!"  
"How...two...Ranma?" Shampoo looked back and forth between the faces.  
Locking on Ranma's pig-tail, she confidently said, "_This_ Ranma!" Whirling  
to face the other, she continued, "Who you??" Her face mirrored her puzzlement.  
"I'll give you three guesses and the first two don't count," Twister  
smiled.  
Still puzzled, Shampoo thought about it. Eventually, realization  
dawned as she recalled the one person she knew with that kind of humour.  
"YOU TWISTER???" She looked completely confused now.  
Twister sighed and nodded, "Yup. Thank Happosei for this."  
Confusion give way to a smiling, murderous intent. "Then if Shampoo  
lose _this_ way, I not have to marry you!"  
"I don't think it works that way Shampoo. I believe you thought  
that about Ranma once, remember?" Twister started backing away in spite of her  
words.  
"Shampoo not care! I still KILL!" Shampoo raised now-present maces  
and leaped to attack Twister.  
Dodging and thanking deities that she still had heightened reflexes in  
this form, Twister shouted, "Shampoo! I've found my power is different in  
this body! I'd rather not have to use it!"  
Shampoo replied with a strike that would have driven her into the  
pavement.  
"Yikes!" Jumping out of the way, Twister thought of a quick,  
relatively harmless rhyme and called out, "Have it your way then!"  
She shouted out,  
"Maces that care not where they land,  
Rebel against thine owner's hand!"  
Twister put a small amount of power into it, not wanting it to last long  
or seriously harm Shampoo.  
A purple glow enveloped Shampoo's maces. She paused; puzzled at  
the strange light coming from her weapons. Suddenly, one of her maces  
jumped towards _her_ in a strike while she was still holding it. Too  
stunned to react, Shampoo was unable to protect herself and was knocked  
unconscious by the mace. Her maces were going to continue the attack but  
Twister mentally cancelled the hastily made spell quickly.  
Walking over to the prone Shampoo, Ranma-chan and Twister contemplated  
the knocked-out figure.  
"That fight ended in a hurry." Ranma-chan commented.  
Twister smiled, "So much for her date." Sighing she continued, "I'd  
better get her home, we can't leave her here and since I'm the one who did  
it..."  
Looking dubious, Ranma-chan nodded, "Ok, but you'd better do it quick."  
Picking up the unconscious girl, Twister sighed. "You don't need to  
tell me twice. I'll be home soon!" With that, she leaped to a roof-top and  
bounced away to deliver Shampoo.  
Ranma-chan rubbed the back of her head after seeing the manner Twister  
had departed in.  
"Twister's _gotta_ be getting used to things 'round here."_ _ _

___Soon, Twister and her unconscious burden reached Shampoo's restaurant.  
Knowing that her form wasn't the same, she decided to walk into the building.  
Telling Cologne about the arch-demon's now-confirmed status was important.  
Twister walked in and called out, "Cologne! You here?"  
Coming out, Cologne saw someone who looked like Ranma-chan but not  
in Chinese clothing and minus a pig-tail holding a limp Shampoo. "Is  
that you son-in-law? What happened to Shampoo?"  
Sitting Shampoo on a chair, Twister replied, "I'm not Ranma and  
Shampoo tried to kill me again." She sighed. "That's a habit I'd really like  
her to break."  
"Twister??" Cologne's eyes widened.  
Twister nodded and said ruefully, "Malkon wasn't killed. He must have  
gone to the cursed springs in China and sent some water to Happosei. You can  
guess the rest." Brightening, she continued, "The bonus is that I can use  
rhyme magic in this form."  
Still a little stunned that the arch-demon still lived, Cologne nodded,  
"I had wondered about that. Shampoo told me you had entered the Event but the  
lack of magic caused me to wonder." Looking at Shampoo again, she went on,  
"You'd better leave before she comes to."  
Nodding, Twister stood up, "I came inside to warn you about Malkon but  
you're right. Wouldn't want to trash the place." She bowed towards Cologne  
and headed for the door.  
Unfortunately, Mousse happened to come in at that time. He was still  
looking a little battered from the last time with Twister but was almost  
recovered. He spotted Twister leaving, and even without the pig-tail Mousse  
thought it was Ranma.  
"Ranma! What are you doing here?" He readied himself for battle.  
Not wanting to fight again so soon, Twister didn't correct him,  
"Shampoo there tried to kill Twister again. As you can see she didn't fare  
too well but she's basically alright. Just unconscious. You'd better check  
on her just in case." That said, she passed the now running Mousse, who was  
going to Shampoo, and left.  
Cologne chuckled to herself, "That one is clever, that is for sure."_ _ _

___Going home, Twister decided to stop by Ukyou's and have a chat. And  
something to eat. She wasn't hungry but having the extra energy couldn't  
hurt.  
Stopping at the door, she chuckled, *Another person to surprise.*  
Then headed in.  
Ukyou had her back to Twister so she was able to get a seat before  
Ukyou noticed. When Ukyou turned, she saw Twister and smiled broadly.  
"Ranma, honey! Did you come to have something to eat?" She saw the  
absent pig-tail and her face showed shock, "What happened to your hair??"  
"BUZZZZZ! Incorrect! The correct question was, 'Who the heck are you?!?'"  
Puzzled by 'Ranma's' behavior, Ukyou was concerned. "Are you alright  
Ranma?"  
Twister rolled her eyes and looked to the ceiling, "And here I thought  
my charming personality would shine though." She said to herself out loud, "I  
certainly thought the first time we talked you got a pretty good impression  
of me then."  
Still confused, Ukyou just gazed at Twister until Twister started  
pantomiming a tornado. "TWISTER??!! How...did...THIS...??"  
"Add arch-demon and cursed water with lust-crazed old Master and stir  
well. You should get a wonderfully confused Twister." She chuckled.  
Shocked at Twister's predicament, Ukyou said, "You don't look very  
shocked or angry."  
"I used up my confusion account a long time ago." Twister paused. "I'm  
overdrawn in fact. All the things that have happened to me kind of does that  
to you. I just hope nothing more too serious happens to me. Unluckily,  
with Malkon about that's not too likely." She looked towards the kitchen,  
"Mind making another special for me?"  
Grateful for doing something familiar in her surprise, Ukyou complied  
with the request and headed towards the kitchen.  
"Hmm. At least, I'm having fun updating people."_ _ _

___"So Shampoo attacked you _twice_ since I last talked with you?"  
"Yup. Beat her once with magic and once with psionics." Twister shook  
her head. "I _wish_ she'd get the point!"  
Ukyou looked incredulous, "After going after Ranma for so long?? I  
don't think she _can_ take a hint. When she puts her mind on something,  
she doesn't give up easily."  
Forlorn, Twister sighed, "You're right. Well, I told Ranma I'd meet  
him...er...her...er...AGGGHH! Whatever! At home, anyway." She stood up.  
"Thanks for the wonderful meal again and the talk. It's good to do that."  
Ukyou smiled, "No problem, it's my pleasure. You certainly talk about  
interesting events."  
"Till next time then!" Twister paid for the bill and went back to  
the Tendos._ _ _

___The reception Twister got when she returned surprised her.  
"What took you so long? It's almost dinnertime!" Akane was angry.  
"Whoa! I just talked with Cologne about Malkon for a bit. I thought  
it better she know he was alive. I also stopped at Ukyou's for a chat and  
to update her on my status in case she confused me for Ranma in the  
future." Twister was surprised. "Why are _you_ so angry? I would think Ranma  
would be more of a worry on your mind."  
Nabiki spoke up, "We thought something had happened to you. Given the  
current state of affairs I would think that kind of concern would be  
understandable." She concluded worriedly, thinking more of Malkon than anything  
else.  
Twister sighed, "You're right. I hadn't thought you'd be that concerned  
though."  
Ranma spoke from where he was leaning by the wall, "I think we've all  
gotten to know you enough to consider you a friend."  
Akane nodded firmly, "And friends look out for each other."  
Twister looked at Nabiki, "I guess we should at that."  
Nabiki blushed.  
Surprised and nervous at this reaction, Twister called out, "Well!  
Is supper almost ready?"  
Ranma groaned. "How can you _eat_ after that ice-cream _and_ likely  
eating at Ukyou's??" He ate a lot but Twister...  
"I open mouth, insert food, close mouth, and swallow. Simple, no?"  
Twister grinned at Ranma's green face. "I take it you yourself haven't quite  
recovered from the dairy delights yet. Ah well, more for me...and Genma."  
Ranma groaned again._ _ _

___Chapter Twenty-Four  
\-------------------_ _ _

___Early morning sunlight caressed a restless sleeper. The sleep was  
a troubled one, as the groans issuing from the mouth proclaimed. Head turning  
back and forth in denial, the body twisted away from whatever vision filled  
its head. With a final, sharp groan the sleeper awakened and sat up sharply  
from the bed.  
*No!* Twister was shocked and dismayed at what he had just woken  
up from. He rubbed his eyes with his hands. *No. That can't happen. I won't  
_LET_ that happen!* He shook his head to clear the cobwebs from his mind.  
Thinking more clearly, he pondered the dream, or rather, nightmare.  
*I can't afford to think that was a _normal_ dream. I've never  
remembered dreaming something so vivid in my life. It _has_ to do with  
my precognitive power.* He smiled grimly. *But like I said to Ranma a  
while ago, there are likely _infinite_ paths to the future. I just dreamed  
the most likely path to happen at the moment. Not a pleasant one. But one  
can _change_ paths. If one knows what is to come if one does nothing.* He stood  
up determined. *No time for games now, Twister. Malkon is coming. I don't  
know how soon or how much time I have to prepare for it but unless I am,  
and also my friends and allies, I see a dark path ahead.* He pondered what  
to do. *From what I saw, those I recruit will need a lot of help. I think  
only _I_ can furnish that. Time to work in earnest on magic I believe.*  
Twister smiled grimly again._ _ _

___Nabiki was worried. Twister had changed, for some unknown reason, a  
week ago. The night before the change, he was normal. The morning  
after, a completely different Twister came out of his room. Only for  
breakfast. He had looked a little frightened but a _lot_ more determined  
about something. And serious. He never cracked a smart comment or made  
a joke anymore.  
*What happened that night?* She wondered. *Something changed him  
and I'm not sure why.*  
He had even flew out for a time, even though she now knew about his  
slight fear of heights, and had returned with a large sack of _something_  
extremely heavy by his stance. Twister had refused to comment about it.  
Happosei hadn't even tried to change Twister into a girl. He too was  
frightened by the change.  
Ranma, idiot that he was sometimes, had confronted Twister and had  
asked what was up. Twister looked like he was going to say something then  
had changed his mind and merely commented that Ranma would find out soon  
enough. The look in his eye discouraged even Ranma.  
Soun and Genma had tried to peek into Twister's room when he was  
away. They had found out that he had enchanted his room in some way and only  
he could enter and see into the room.  
Whatever Twister was doing must be taking a _lot_ of power since he  
ate for a hour non-stop when he left his room and visited all-you-can-eat  
restaurants frequently.  
What was puzzling was the large amounts of hot and cold water he  
took with him to his room._ _ _

___After two weeks of this, Nabiki spotted Twister looking very tired  
and staring into the pond. This was unusual. He had been only eating and  
doing whatever it was in his room lately.  
"Twister?" She said softly.  
He started and looked at her, "Oh. Hi, Nabiki." He smiled tiredly at  
her.  
This brightened her spirits. "So, you've come out to breathe some air  
finally have you?"  
Twister sighed, "I think I've been going at this a little too hard but  
I don't know how much time we have left."  
Nabiki knew about Malkon's possible threat to Twister but she still  
couldn't understand this need for urgency.  
He continued, "I've done all I can for the others. Now _I_ have to  
become prepared." He fingered a new necklace around his neck that she had  
never seen before. It was mearly string with a sphere of some black substance  
hanging from it. "_This_ is what I've done for myself so far, but I'm still  
afraid it might not be enough..."  
"Enough for _what_ Twister?? Why have you been so serious these past  
two weeks?" Nabiki demanded.  
Twister sighed, "It will happen soon. I might as well tell you now..."  
SPLASH!!!  
Something fell into the pond with the resulting wave drenching Twister  
and Nabiki. A form rose up from the water and regarded the two humans on the  
ground.  
"NO!" Changed into female form, Twister shouted out in horror as she  
recognized the demonic form before her from her dream. Acting with swiftness,  
she quickly grabbed the sphere hanging on the necklace and broke it open.  
Purple fire erupted from the sphere and enveloped Twister. Before the demon  
could react, she pointed at it. Purple flames spewed forth from Twister's  
finger, blasting the surprised demon unconscious.  
Spinning quickly to Nabiki, Twister grabbed her shoulders and spoke  
rapidly, "I don't have much time. Malkon's attacking _now_! Remember these  
words. 'The truth shall come out' Go to my room with Ranma and the others.  
Don't worry about the spell barring the room. Just speak those words and  
it will collapse. Go to my bed _first_. There is a message disk there like  
I showed you once before. Touch it and say 'confess' to it. It will tell you  
the rest." More flying demons were coming rapidly and Twister didn't have  
much time left. "I like you a lot Nabiki. I may even..." Twister looked  
depressed. "Maybe I'd better not now. Go and please do as I say. It's  
my only hope." That said and ignoring Nabiki's protests, Twister shouted  
a word, pointed at Nabiki, and a field of force surrounded her. She whispered,  
"Good-bye...for now." Twister turned and ran at the demons.  
"TWISTER!!!!" Nabiki pounded at the field in futility.  
Twister's flaming form dodged the demons with dexterity as she knocked  
more out with her flame. She was aided by the fact that the demons had orders  
to take Twister alive. Unfortunately, there were too many. One got behind  
Twister without her knowledge and knocked her unconscious, flames gone. It  
picked up Twister's limp form and gestured. Mystic bonds wrapped around her  
arms, legs, and mouth. The demon looked in satisfaction at this and flew off  
with Twister, the other demons following behind it carrying their unconscious  
fellows.  
"NOOO!" Nabiki sobbed inside the sphere.  
The others inside the house finally rushed to help but they were too  
late, the demons were gone with their prize. They stared in horror as the  
demons flew off.  
Akane and Kasumi ran to Nabiki. When Akane cautiously touched the  
sphere it collapsed. They rushed to see if their sister was alright. After a  
while, Nabiki calmed down and stood up. There was a very determined and angry  
look in her eye. It remined Akane of Twister lately.  
Nabiki glared at the direction the demons went. "Bastard." She growled.  
Her family was shocked, Nabiki had never acted this way before. "Akane, Ranma,  
Father, Mr. Saotome, come with me. Now." She said in a voice that allowed  
for no argument and went into the house with the others following.  
When they reached Twister's door, Nabiki shouted out, "The truth shall  
come out!"  
With a flash of light, the spell collapsed and the door opened wide.  
Nabiki strode directly towards the bed while the others filed into the room.  
They looked around the room and looked in wonder at what Twister had done.  
Objects with notes attached to them were placed in neat areas around the floor  
of the room. Vials of clear liquid, some strange equipment, large diamond  
crystals. These were all glowing with a soft purple glow.  
Ignoring the objects around her, Nabiki went straight to the bed,  
touched the promised disk, and shouted, "Confess!"  
Swirling light formed above the disk as the female Twister's form  
appeared. It seemed much more solid than the previous message they had seen  
weeks before. Nabiki choked and Akane put an arm around her in comfort as the  
image started to speak.  
"If you all are hearing this, then what I predicted has happened."  
Those watching were shocked that Twister had _expected_ this, but the image went  
on. "The change in my behavior was due to a dream I had. This was no normal  
dream but one that offered a glimpse into the most likely future at that time.  
It was not...good." She paused for a second. "Through this dream I knew Malkon  
would attack soon and how. This would happen anyway. I kept silence so that  
the attack would come when _I_ expected, not just Malkon. Unless he is defeated  
utterly, we are never safe. I figured that the best chance to do that was  
to _let_ him catch me. Risky, but the only way to find him. I couldn't  
find him by spell, he shielded too well.  
"My plan was this: To create magical means for you all to resist his  
powers of domination and transformation and to enable you to defeat his forces  
in his stronghold. Also, a means for the party you have yet to collect to  
be transported to a place close to his base. _I_ will provide the location  
hopefully when I am brought there. A spell will do this but it will lie  
outside his forces." Twister waved around her. "These objects all have their  
intended owner's name on them as well as their purpose. I haven't had time yet  
to write down _all_ of their powers but what I did put down will be sufficient.  
Hopefully." She sighed loudly, "Also, the base's most likely place is Seven  
Luck mountain but I cannot be sure," Some inhaled loudly at that. "My dream  
included some of the Seven Lucky Gods martial artists fighting for Malkon as  
well as minor demons. They are obviously spelled but I created means to break  
that hopefully within your own protections. No powerful demons are likely to  
be there other than Malkon, I believe demons are _very_ competitive with each  
other." Smiling fondly, she added one last thing. "Nabiki." Nabiki started at  
this. "Don't go with the others. Please. It's important. I'm sorry to have  
caused you...pain. But...it couldn't be helped. I wish it _had_ been."  
Twister looked very sad. "I...I..."  
The figure faded away._ _ _

___Chapter Twenty-Five  
\-------------------_ _ _

___Nabiki stared at where the magical image of Twister had been in  
silence.  
Ranma muttered, "Seven Luck mountain. Kirin. Oh just great. Why  
can't it be _easy_ for once."  
"I don't think Twister believed he had much choice Ranma." Akane  
answered as she watched Nabiki. "I certainly couldn't think of a much better  
way to fight an arch-demon like Malkon."  
Nabiki snapped out of her trace and had a fierce look on her face,  
"Well, if he doesn't think I should go," She glaced around the room. "then  
I'll organize this 'party' he mentioned before you go." Suddenly, she looked  
sad. "It's the best thing I can do now."  
Akane grabbed her hands and squeezed them. "If he said not to go then  
he _must_ have had a very good reason Nabiki. Besides, you're not a fighter.  
_We_ are." She looked at Ranma, Genma, and Soun, then at all the equipment  
scattered about the room. "You _are_ better at organizing stuff anyway. He  
certainly made a lot of stuff didn't he?"  
Ranma walked around the objects on the floor. "Sure did. I wonder  
who he wanted in this party anyway?"  
"Let's check out the sheets on them and see if he mentioned that."  
Nabiki started looking at each paper.  
Reading each paper as he walked along each object, Ranma's eyes got  
bigger and bigger.  
"Is he _serious_???"_ _ _

___Shuffling the papers together, Nabiki found the list Twister had made  
for the party.  
"Ranma, Akane, Ukyou, Mousse, Shampoo," She looked a little surprised.  
"Kunou, and Kodachi?? He _must_ be desperate. Hmm. No mention of Genma, Soun,  
Happosei, or Cologne. More sense than I thought he had with this crazy scheme."  
Soun and Genma looked indignant while secretly relieved, "Daughter!  
Is that any way to speak about your father!"  
Nabiki smiled, "Likely for protecting the house, Daddy, is what I meant."  
"Oh."  
Ranma smirked at that. *Nice cover-up Nabiki.*  
"I'd better gather the others." Nabiki stood up. "No offence but I think  
I'll be able to pursuade them better."  
Ranma smirked again. "Or else."  
"Ranma!" Akane smacked him.  
"Just start finding out who gets what. You can explain what it will do  
when they get here." Nabiki frowned. "Ryoga could be a problem."  
Flipping though the papers, Akane exclaimed, "Twister thought of that  
already. Some sort of personal, one-shot teleport for Ryoga. Twister  
apparently used one of Ryoga's bandannas to focus on him."  
Laughing, Ranma exclaimed, "I _have_ to see his face when he comes."_ _ _

___Nabiki's first visit was Ukyou's restaurant.  
Ukyou saw her immediately as she came in. Ukyou was surprised. Nabiki  
practically never came here and from the look of her face something was up.  
"Hi Ukyou. I have to see you about something."  
"I don't see you around here often Nabiki. What's up?"  
"I know Twister has talked to you a few times."  
Ukyou nodded. "Yes, but the last two weeks he's been here he was very  
quiet. Something seemed to be bothering him but I didn't pry. Do you know  
what it is?" Something in Nabiki's expression made her think she wasn't going  
to like the answer.  
She was right.  
"He had a sort of future dream that showed Malkon capturing him. He  
was preparing himself for the past two weeks." Nabiki's face fell a bit.  
"Twister was taken early this morning."  
Ukyou's shock showed plainly on her face, "WHAT? Why? What can I do to  
help?"  
Nabiki smiled a bit, "Thanks. Apparently, he created a _lot_ of  
equipment for a party to rescue him and to get to Malkon. One of the people  
he had on the list was you, as well as a few others."  
Smiling at this, Ukyou said, "Gladly! Just let me close the restaurant  
and I'll go to your house." Ukyou paused and frowned, "What _kind_ of  
equipment anyway?"  
Nabiki chuckled for the first time in a while, "Knowing Twister, likely  
_very_ destructive, considering it's Malkon."_ _ _

___The next stop was Shampoo's restaurant. Walking in, she saw Shampoo  
waiting tables while Mousse was staring at Shampoo from a corner table.  
Knowing full well of Shampoo's vow to kill Twister, Nabiki looked for Cologne  
instead. Walking up to a counter she spotted Cologne in the kitchen.  
"Cologne!" Nabiki called out.  
Cologne heard her name and walked over to Nabiki. Shampoo wondered  
what Nabiki wanted with her great-grandmother and walked towards them.  
Looking up at Nabiki, Cologne figured out the most likely reason  
she knew of that Nabiki would be here with such a serious face.  
"Something happen to Twister?"  
Nodding, Nabiki replied, "Demons surprised him this morning and took  
Twister away."  
Cologne paled, "They didn't try to kill him? That's not good. The  
arch-demon will try to take Twister's magic for his own and since Twister is  
likely innately more powerful than Malkon..." She shook her head, "Malkon's  
power will likely more than double. He will be unstoppable."  
Looking at Cologne, Nabiki replied, "That's right. Twister, however,  
foresaw this coming with one of his Mind powers. He made a magical arsenal  
for a party to rescue Twister and get Malkon. A list he made for the  
party included Mousse and Shampoo." Shampoo started at this.  
"Shampoo not help Twister!" She looked very angry.  
Sighing, Nabiki turned to Shampoo, "Shampoo we are going to be facing  
an arch-demon's forces. For all the help Twister made for us, I believe the  
party will need everyone to make it successfully." She paused thoughtfully.  
"Ranma will be going as well you realize. Twister is his friend and without  
your help Ranma may not make it back."  
While that point was sinking in, Cologne added, "You _must_ go girl!  
An arch-demon with that much power will not be satisfied sitting around!"  
Grudgingly, Shampoo nodded, "I go."  
"And since Shampoo is coming. You will too, Mousse. Right?" Nabiki  
asked Mousse where he was still sitting.  
Calmly, Mousse declared, "Of course. I must go with my future bride."  
Before Shampoo could debate that point, Nabiki hurriedly said, "Great!  
Meet at our house. Twister made some stuff you two are going to love I bet."  
Cologne softly muttered to herself as Nabiki, Shampoo, and Mousse left.  
"I hope it will suffice..."_ _ _

___Reaching her final stop, Nabiki thought to herself, *Now this should  
be fun. Kunou is easy, but Kodachi...well, I'd better try.* Steeling herself  
and putting on a cheerful face, which she did not feel herself at the moment,  
Nabiki entered the Kunou home.  
After much pompous introductions and such, Nabiki finally got to talk  
with Kunou and Kodachi together. Nabiki filled them in on Twister's abduction  
and the means to help him that he had left behind.  
Kunou paused in thought for a moment and then stood up, waving his  
bamboo sword above him. "Yes! I shall embark upon this perilous quest to  
rescue this 'Twister' person from Evil's clutches. Nothing will withstand  
Tatewaki Kunou's might no matter how powerful it may be. I shall also  
protect Akane in the midst of the horrors to come. No matter the odds, we  
will be victorious!" He posed dramatically, "Beware Malkon! The Blue Thunder  
of Furinkan High will defeat you!" Kunou turned to Kodachi. "Sister! Will you  
join us on this noble quest?"  
Kodachi smiled unnervingly at Nabiki, "Why not? It sounds like fun.  
Nothing the Black Rose cannot handle. But..." She leaned towards Nabiki with  
a gleam in her eyes. "What sort of 'special' objects did this 'Twister' leave  
to help us?"  
Smiling broadly, Nabiki said, "Where Twister's concerned you can bet  
it's going to be amusing. Not for poor Malkon though."  
Kodachi's smile grew broader. "Oh good, I just _love_ those sort of  
surprises..."_ _ _

___Ukyou arrived at the Tendo house and noticed Ranma by the pond.  
He was placing something on the ground that Ukyou couldn't see.  
"Ranma!" She cried out in greeting. "What are you doing? Something  
to do with Twister?"  
"Hi Uc-chan." Ranma looked up and smiled at her bringing a warm  
glow to her heart. "I'm gonna get Ryoga now. Twister made this thing to bring  
him here. There's not much chance of finding him otherwise. I was about to  
activate it."  
Puzzled, Ukyou asked Ranma, "Why are _you_ doing it? I thought you  
didn't like Ryoga much."  
"I _don't_. I wanna see the look on his face when this brings him.  
It should be very funny." Ranma chuckled and backed away from the crystal.  
Looking at it, Ukyou wondered, "What is it made of anyway?"  
"Diamond." Seeing Ukyou's astonished face, Ranma laughed. "I see  
Twister hasn't told you everything he can do yet." That said, Ranma uttered  
the phrase he had found to activate the spell. "Come on down!"  
Purple light slowly grew within the crystal. It intensified until  
both watchers had to look away. Suddenly, the light flared, died, and a small  
thunderclap heralded Ryoga's arrival.  
His expression was all Ranma could've hoped for. Equal amounts of  
startlement, fear, and confusion were clearly pasted on his frozen face as he  
stood posed to take another step, holding the straps to his backpack firmly.  
Ranma took one look at this and collapsed laughing.  
"You...should...see...your....face...Ryoga!" He gasped out.  
This released Ryoga from his state of shock. Anger now showed on  
his face. "How did you do _this_ Ranma!" Ryoga balled his fists and started  
advancing on the still laughing Ranma. Then he paused as he realized something.  
"Now I can see Akane again."  
This halted Ranma's laughter immediately. "Wanna bet?!" He shouted as  
he jumped back up and faced Ryoga, who got ready himself.  
Ukyou was wondering what to do when Akane came out and saw the two  
facing off, about to attack each other.  
"Ranma!" Startled, Ryoga and Ranma swung their faces towards Akane.  
"You were _supposed_ to bring Ryoga and tell him what's going on! Not fight  
him!" Anger showed on her face.  
"Well _he_...um...he..." Ranma couldn't say why he had about to fight  
Ryoga to Akane. "Oh never mind! You tell him then! I'll show Ukyou what  
Twister made for her. Come on Uc-chan." That said, Ranma went into the house  
with a smiling Ukyou behind.  
Akane stared after Ranma and Ukyou, anger and something else now  
warring within her. After a brief struggle, Akane took a deep breath and started  
talking to a waiting Ryoga. "Do you remember Twister, Ryoga?" When he  
nodded, she continued, "Well, I've some bad news to tell you." Akane  
proceeded to tell Ryoga about the abduction and Twister's plan. That said,  
Akane asked Ryoga pleadingly, "Will you help us?"  
Ryoga was horrified at the idea of Akane going without him to protect  
her from all those demons she had talked about. The choice was a simple one  
to Ryoga. "Of course. I will join your group Akane."  
The smile she made then lifted his heart. "Thanks Ryoga. Let's go  
in and see what Twister made for you while we wait for the others to come.  
They should be here soon.  
Ryoga nodded and followed Akane into the house as Ukyou had followed  
Ranma._ _ _

___ _

___Chapter Twenty-Six  
\------------------_ _ _

___Twister woke up, still in the arms of her captor. The smell of the  
demon threatened to send her back into unconsciousness but she managed to  
stay awake. They were still flying so that meant Twister's plan would  
work. Or rather, _could_ work.  
*I'd better hope I can make plans as well as I can make diamonds.*  
Twister mused to herself. *I can only pray that the others gather and are  
prepared in time.* Thinking about the group as a whole, Twister silently  
groaned in her mind. *I may be doomed. Nabiki, please get them ready in time.*_ _ _

___"WILL YOU ALL SETTLE DOWN ALREADY!!" Nabiki shouted. The sight before  
her nearly drove her insane with rage but she forced that luxury down. The  
sight before her certainly warranted the rage though.  
People froze what they had been doing. There were two groups of people  
who had been shouting at each other. One was Ranma, Ryoga, Mousse and Kunou.  
The other was Akane, Shampoo, Ukyou, and Kodachi. The arguments had strayed  
from Twister's problem to their own problems with each other. The groups  
had formed unconsciously, with the boys arguing about the girls, and the girls  
arguing about the boys. Typical, but certainly not welcomed by Nabiki who  
had always been uninvolved with their love troubles. She _was_ involved with  
this current crisis however, and she certainly sounded like it.  
Calmly talking in the silence that had followed her shout she continued,  
"In _case_ you _all_ have forgotten, we have an arch-demon who is about to  
do something with a friend of some of us here. This will result in said  
arch-demon's power increasing dramatically enough to likely become unstoppable.  
If we don't start preparing _now_, then we will be too late and the problems  
you were so intelligently going about before WILL BE MOOT!" She shouted at that  
last. "This arch-demon is _male_. We know he was _interested_ in Akane when  
Malkon saw her. He will likely take Shampoo, Ukyou, Kodachi, and others.  
The guys he will kill or enslave to his will." Nabiki looked at the faces  
turned towards her. "So will you _please_ sit down so you can prepare?"  
The true threat of Malkon finally sunk in the minds of even the most  
stubborn of those present and they all sat down again, although with some  
hostile looks between them.  
*Well, better than nothing. That's for sure.* Nabiki thought,  
exasperated. "Akane. What did Twister leave to protect the group from Malkon?"  
Akane left the room and came back with a _very_ large diamond crystal  
in her hands. She placed it on the table and started talking about it. "This  
crystal apparently does a number of things." She looked at a piece of paper  
briefly, then continued, "First of all, when a person puts a hand on the  
crystal and says 'shields up', then that person will be protected against  
domination and transformation magics. Secondly, the palm which touched the  
crystal will, hopefully, break a domination spell for anyone else if the palm  
is placed on the forehead of the person enchanted. Lastly, Twister has a spell  
that will teleport anyone who was protected by the crystal to a location viewed  
by Twister when activated. Twister mentioned that the spell might take a  
minute to activate in order to prevent Malkon from stopping it." Akane put  
down the paper and went to the crystal. Placing her hand upon it before  
anyone could object, she called out, "Shields up!"  
Purple fire engulfed her hand and with unbelievable swiftness, spread  
all over her body. She almost panicked at this but the fire seemed to sink  
harmlessly into her skin and disappeared.  
Ranma worriedly said, "You ok? How's it feel?"  
Wonderingly, Akane exclaimed, "Like a warm blanket! I'm fine! It feels  
like it covers my mind _and_ body. It's comfortable."  
Not wanting to appear afraid, especially with Akane's positive reaction  
to the spell, everyone else to go in the party touched the crystal and was  
prepared as well.  
Nodding that this important part was done, Nabiki went on to the next  
topic. "Now that _that_ is done," *Finally* she thought, "let's go on to the  
things Twister made for you." Flipping through papers, Ranma picked out  
the paper intended for each person there and gave it to them. "Some of you  
have seen the objects but these papers describe in a lot more detail of  
what you will get." Some exclamations were made around the table as they  
read what was written on the papers. Twister had managed to match his  
descriptions to the personalities of some of the more...unstable ones, so  
even they looked happy as well with what he wrote. "Only half will actually  
_get_ extra items, since Twister thought most would be more happy with your  
normal weapons enhanced rather than brand-new ones." Nods all around the  
table with that comment. "Twister also mentions some _extra_ things he did  
but didn't have time to write those down so be careful and if you find  
them...point in a demon's direction if you can." Nabiki looked thoughtful.  
"He also mentioned that some or most of the Seven Lucky Gods martial artists  
had become enchanted. I very much doubt that Malkon didn't equip his most  
'loyal' followers with magical weapons as well so be careful with them.  
You told me how good they had been last time." Several grim nods there.  
Nabiki got up and motioned for them all to follow her to Twister's  
room. "Now you had better get ready. We don't know how long we have before  
Twister reaches Malkon's stronghold." Surprisingly, they were silent as they  
followed her but from the look in their eyes, she surmised they were looking  
forward to this grand melee. Apparently, they hadn't had a large battle  
for some time and were now eager to begin it. Especially, to play around with  
the 'extra options'.  
*You'll need them, I think.* Nabiki thought grimly._ _ _

___The demon saw its destination ahead by the large pillars of hot water  
coming out of the earth. It started losing altitude to land.  
Twister felt this and cracked open an eye. *We're here. Joy. Now the  
fun begins.* She thought as they swooped down.  
Using the mystic senses she had discovered in this form, Twister felt  
the protections surrounding the arch-demon's new lair. *Been a busy boy, hasn't  
he? I would guess the _only_ way in, is through the gates. Those shields feel  
formidable. He's been preparing.* She thought grimly. *Well, so have I.*  
The demon landed, finally, before the first gate. Twister could see  
one of the martial artists Malkon had enchanted but the name eluded her.  
The lower class demons also swarmed around, eager for battle they felt was  
sure to come with Twister's abduction.  
*Sooner than you _think_ guys. When you see the people coming to  
help me I do _not_ think you will be so eager anymore.*  
Seeing that she could wait no longer, Twister looked around for  
a good spot. *There.* She smiled inside. A large flat rock well away from  
the demons but in sight. Fixing the location in her mind, and praying that  
it work, Twister activated one of the two dormant spells she had given herself  
when she had broken open the black sphere. It was merely a location spell  
and would not be noticed. Only a mental nudge was needed to start it and...  
*Done!*  
Twister had felt the magic locate the spot she had specified and  
was now fixing the _much_ more powerful teleport spell it was attuned to in  
the big crystal to this location. Slowly. Malkon wouldn't be able to notice  
this until too late, she hoped.  
Suddenly, the demon started walking towards the first gate.  
Twister's sense of humour came to the fore. *Abandon all hope ye  
who enter here... _Not_ a good thought at this time, Twister. I wish I could  
be certain this will turn out ok. Get here in time guys...*_ _ _

___The group had been gathered around the table for about a half an hour  
when a vision flashed through their minds. A large flat rock, with the first  
gate beyond and quite a few demons guarding it. The big crystal on the table  
started to glow as the teleport spell prepared itself.  
"This is it! Get ready people!" Nabiki shouted.  
"I am ready." said Ryoga.  
"Let's get this show on the road." Ranma was a little nervous at all  
those demons he had seen at the _first_ gate but calmed down when he remembered  
the abilities of the group he was with.  
"I hope we get there in time." Akane said worriedly.  
"Never fear dear Akane, the gods will be with us in this noble quest!"  
"Give it a rest elder brother. This should be fun!" Kodachi's eyes  
burned with a bright fire.  
"Shampoo always ready!" She exclaimed, looking not at all worried.  
"And I." Mousse said calmly.  
The crystal's light was almost to bright to look at now. Suddenly,  
beams of light streaked to each of the party members since they all had touched  
the diamond. They froze in place by the beam's magic and purple auras were  
visible around each one before, with a multiple thunderclap, they disappeared.  
The diamond had been made large in order to store and handle the  
powerful magics done with it. However, this final bit of magic was the last  
straw and the diamond crumbled to carbon ash.  
Nabiki now sat alone, staring at where the diamond had been. The  
confident expression she had worn was now gone, along with the need to  
maintain it.  
Kasumi came in when she heard the party depart and saw Nabiki.  
Smiling gently, she went over to her sister and sat down beside her.  
"They'll bring him back, Nabiki. Don't worry." She softly smiled.  
Suddenly, Nabiki started crying and Kasumi put an arm around her until  
she stopped.  
Calming down, Nabiki looked though swollen eyes at her sister. "I'll  
deny ever doing that if you say anything."  
"I know."_ _ _

___Twister heard the multiple thunderclaps just as the demon had reached  
the second gate. *They're here! It worked!* She grinned inwardly. *Now the  
party _really_ begins!*_ _ _

___Chapter Twenty-Seven  
\--------------------_ _ _

___They appeared on the large, flat stone of their vision. A little  
disoriented at first, they soon steadied themselves as the demons at the first  
gate saw them with a shriek of glee. Mortals to play with!  
However, the shrieks of glee turned into shrieks of pain and surprise  
when the party charged into the ranks of the demons with their Twister-  
enchanted weapons._ _ _

___Malkon was pleased that he had gotten Twister so easily. Of course,  
magic requires much more time to cast and practice, so the demons had been  
instructed to get Twister wet. If Twister had been able to use psionic powers  
then the demons would have had no chance.  
*That cursed water proved most useful.* Malkon mused. *Now, I shall  
have Twister completely in my power and the power the Event has given Twister  
will be mine as well. The magic part of course.* He chuckled. *Also, I will  
be able to test another theory of mine. I wonder if that magic immunity works  
in Twister's _female_ form. Different powers might mean different weaknesses.*  
Malkon smiled with glee. *It will make things _much_ simpler if it is.*  
Suddenly, a powerful burst of magic, within the range of his mystic  
senses, appeared out of nowhere.  
"What was that?!" He shouted aloud.  
Closing his eyes, Malkon looked with his mind's eye at the location  
where the magic had occurred. He was surprised to find a small force of mortals  
encountering his lower demons at the first gate, and winning.  
*Who...?* Malkon thought angrily then stopped wondering. *Twister. It  
must be. Twister must have prepared some mortals with the magic he figured  
out in case of capture. Which just happened.* Smiling now, Malkon applauded  
his opponent's foresight. *Very clever. And I wonder if...* He tried to  
reach out and control one of the fighters that had just appeared and found,  
with little surprise, that he could not, no matter how hard he tried. *Clever  
indeed. This must have taken a great amount of time and power. Unfortunately,  
for him I struck before he could better protect _himself_ or rather _herself_  
now.* Malkon chuckled at the normal gender switching confusion.  
*I wonder how far they will get.* Looking at the fight with no concern  
in his mind he saw that the fighters were formidable indeed. Half were women  
was well. *Hmm. Including that flower I saw when I first arrived. If they  
survive to reach this far then I will have four additions to my new harem  
I will be starting with Twister.* Thinking about that, Malkon mused over  
the method he was going to use to get Twister's magic as his own. *Killing  
her would do no good. I have no idea of the effect of the Event's dual powers  
will have on me. The safest recourse is...marriage.* He grinned. *Oh, I believe  
Twister is going to love _that_ when I tell her.*  
Malkon had started thinking of Twister as an equal in his mind. Her  
inexperience was a result of mortal life. The power that Twister held placed  
her in the ranks of arch-demons and indeed, she had defeated Malkon in  
her male body. A defeated _equal_ made victory more sweet as well.  
A sudden thought struck him. *I wonder. Mortal though she _was_...  
Is she mortal _now_? The level of her power might make it possible that she  
is an Immortal now. If she is, then I will have a source of power practically  
forever. Time will tell...* He focused his attention on the demon carrying  
the bound Twister. *Soon, wife-to-be. Very soon.*  
He laughed with great pleasure._ _ _

___Ranma was fighting hard on the ground along with Akane, Ukyou, Kunou,  
Shampoo, and Ryoga. Twister's objects had included some things that allowed  
Kodachi and Mousse to fly, as protection against flying demons. He pitied those  
demons. Those two could be maniacs when they let loose and fighting demons was  
certainly going to do that.  
Since he and Akane were primarily hand-to-hand with no ranged weapons,  
Twister had created arm-guards and leg-guards that increased the power of their  
kicks and punches so that the demons were really getting punished. Kunou's  
sword had been boosted so that the weapon inflicted _much_ more damage as  
some of the heavier demons were finding out.  
Shampoo was having a ball with her enchanted maces, pounding demons  
left and right. At one point, she had to let fly one of them to protect Ranma  
from a demon sneaking up behind him. The mace created a large BOOM when it hit  
the demon. The demon went flying, without wings, and demons around it were a  
little stunned. The mace flew back into a surprised Shampoo's hand. She had  
just found one of Twister's forgotten features.  
She grinned. "Shampoo LIKE!" And then proceeded to try it with the other  
mace with the same devastating result.  
"Looks like Shampoo's having fun with Twister's party favours." Ranma  
shouted as he kicked a demon into unconsciousness.  
"Hmp! I guess so but I wish Twister had left more instructions with  
these." Akane punched a demon into the atmosphere.  
"Well, we're doing fine so far." Ranma replied as he attacked another  
demon.  
Ukyou flipped a demon with her giant spatula, "I agree, Ranma! These  
demons aren't much in the fighting department!" She tossed some enchanted  
throwing spatulas at a rushing demon who started backpedalling when he saw the glowing  
missiles coming at him. With several small explosions, the demon fell over  
backwards. "Case in point. Though it _would_ have been almost impossible  
without Twister's help."  
Suddenly, a bolt of energy hit the ground where Ukyou had been a  
second before. The resulting explosion knocked her off-balance and she started  
losing ground to a demon. Looking up she saw an unfamiliar face some distance  
away but realized it must be one of the enchanted Seven Lucky Gods martial  
artists.  
Ranma recognized the fighter as Bishamonten. The big man, seeing he had  
missed Ukyou, decided to go after Akane instead and headed in her direction.  
Ranma couldn't get away from his fight to help her.  
Ryoga, however, saw this as well. With a cry of rage he ki-blasted  
a few demons out of the way and went to help Akane. He remembered that touching  
the fighter's head with the palm that touched the crystal would release the  
person from Malkon's control. With Bishamonten's attention on Akane only,  
Ryoga managed to sneak an attack in and touched the fighter's forehead with the  
hand. Unfortunately, the weapon Bishamonten held glowed brightly and nothing  
happened. Shocked that the weapon had prevented his success, he failed to  
counter the blow that came at him. He was thrown back to Akane semi-conscious.  
"Akane...weapon...prevents...spell...to...free...him." He managed  
to gasp out. "It...must be...destroyed...first!" Ryoga struggled to collect  
himself.  
"Ryoga! Hang on!" Was all Akane was able to get out before _she_ was  
attacked. Akane was hard pressed by the demon-enchanted polearm in the hands  
of the burly fighter. She blocked with her arm-guards and leg-guards and sparks  
flew whenever they made contact. Suddenly, Bishamonten raised his weapon high  
above his head to smash through her defenses. Akane saw it coming and knew  
she couldn't stop it in time but she raised her arms and crossed them in  
a vain attempt to ward of the blow. Ranma, Ryoga and Kunou saw this but all  
were unable to prevent Akane's fall.  
Akane's arm-guards and leg-guards thought otherwise. Both sets  
of armor glowed and a sub-zero blast of cold air blew Bishamonten back,  
stunned hands dropping his weapon that had mostly protected him from the  
blast. Quick to take advantage of this, Ryoga went to the dropped weapon  
and used his umbrella to smash it. Only the fact that his umbrella was the  
only Twister-enchanted object he had on him, allowed him to break the polearm.  
In a flash of red and purple light, the weapon was destroyed.  
Akane went to the stunned fighter and placed her palm on his forehead.  
She felt a clearing of the mind from Bishamonten and he fell down unconscious  
as a result of being freed.  
Ryoga rushed up to her, "Are you alright Akane?"  
A little shaken at the near defeat, Akane managed, "Yes. I'll have to  
thank Twister when we get back. That was a close one."  
*I will too.* Thought Ryoga.  
Akane thought on. *A defeated look that is an attack. He must have  
seen something like that coming in his dream and prepared for it.* Then  
she and Ryoga went on to beat the remaining demons.  
Soon after, the demons of the first gate had all been defeated._ _ _

___Malkon was not happy at how swiftly his first gate had been taken.  
*They are _very_ good. Not that it will help them much. The weapons  
Twister gave them only increase their effectiveness though.* He mused over  
the fact. *One of my enchanted warriors was not enough. Nor were the amount  
of demons very distracting. They will also be able to rest as they go from  
gate to gate. I had not foreseen having the need to block the gates.* Malkon  
was amused. *You chose your warriors well Twister. But we shall see who wins  
the playing field.*  
Malkon thought for a minute and decided.  
*Yes. That will do nicely, I shall summon _all_ my enchanted warriors  
and demons. Then I will have them guard this castle. The combined forces of  
the last four gates will definitely give them a rough time, if not defeat  
them utterly.* Having thought that, he sent his summons to the four gates and  
told them to come guard the castle.  
*Too bad some of the warriors here were away but no matter. I have  
enough.*  
"HMMMMPPPTH! GRHP!"  
Turning at this unexpected sound, Malkon viewed the being who had  
made the sound and smiled in greeting.  
"Welcome, Twister, to my humble abode!"  
Twister was not happy with that statement. "GGRRRHMP!" She was dangling  
from the hand of a large demon at the moment. It dropped Twister so she could  
now stand on the floor at a waved signal from Malkon and left.  
"Ah. I will let you speak in a moment. I must first try something."  
Malkon stood up from his throne and walked over to the increasingly nervous  
and angry Twister. He looked at her with glowing eyes for a moment and went  
back to the throne. Sitting down again, he waved a hand and Twister's gag  
vanished.  
"Gah! Finally!" She worked her mouth to get the feel of a gag out of  
her facial muscles.  
Malkon looked on with curiousity. "Cast a spell." He commanded.  
Looking forward to this, Twister tried to but couldn't. Any attempt  
to make a spell caused the words to slip away. The look of shock brought a  
smile to Malkon's face.  
"Hmm. As I thought. You are not completely immune to magic in _this_  
form. Only psionics I would imagine. I have planted a magical suggestion  
that prevents you from casting spells." He chuckled.  
"That's not fair!" Twister cried angrily.  
Malkon chuckled even more, "What _else_ did you expect? I _am_ an  
arch-demon you know."  
Groaning at this, she rolled her eyes and sighed, "Right. I should  
have _known_ you would say that."  
"Don't feel too bad. A future bride will soon better know her husband."  
Malkon waited for her response in anticipation. This was better than torture.  
"I'd rather not." Twister said before the words he said registered.  
The reaction was all he had hoped for. "BRIDE?!?!?!?!?" Her mouth hung open  
in shock as she paled. "You've GOT to be KIDDING!"  
"Well, it is likely the only way to tap into your magical power  
safely." Malkon smiled widely. "And as you can see, I do not see a problem  
with gender."  
She paled further at that. Twister sputtered, "You...you...!"  
"I have heard that amoung the succumbi I _am_ rather a favorite. You  
should feel honoured. Pity the demon breed cannot reproduce with other races."  
Twister was speechless with anger and horror by now.  
He chuckled, "I do wish you could see your face. Well, you had better  
get ready for the occasion." He clapped and the demon that had brought her  
in appeared. "Take the lady to the dressing room." Looking at her with glowing  
eyes again, Malkon crooned, "Be as quick as you can, though I do realize you  
have not much experience with women's clothing." He waved and the demon carried the  
still speechless Twister out.  
*She will not be speechless for long, unless I miss my guess.* He  
chuckled._ _ _

___Chapter Twenty-Eight  
\--------------------_ _ _

___The party continued past the first gate and were ready for action.  
However, the second gate was empty. This surprised the team.  
"Now _why_ is the gate unguarded?" Ranma wondered.  
"Who cares. Let's go through." With that said, Ryoga entered the  
second gate safely.  
Akane looked at Ranma's surprised gaze, "You were _expecting_ something  
to happen to him!" She looked angry.  
Unconcerned with Akane's anger, Ranma sighed, "I thought it might have  
been a trap. I doubt the jerk would have listened anyway." Looking puzzled, he  
continued, "But if it isn't a trap, why is it empty? This ain't right."  
Shampoo shrugged, "If not trap then go on." She walked after Ryoga.  
The rest shrugged and followed.  
The third and fourth gates were empty as well. This made even Ryoga  
uneasy and he slowed down so that the others could catch up.  
"I don't like this."  
"Oh, _now_ you come to that conclusion." Ranma muttered.  
Ukyou thought about it, "You don't suppose that..."  
"...they all went to guard the castle? That may be it." Mousse replied.  
"Oh great! That would mean instead of doing one gate at a time, we  
have to do them all at once!" Ranma groaned.  
Akane was hopeful, "We don't know that yet Ranma."  
"We will soon and Tatewaki Kunou will be ready!" He swished his sword  
in practice._ _ _

___They found out the truth when they reached the final gate to the  
castle.  
"Oh geez." Ranma stared at the mass of demons surrounding the castle.  
The enchanted martial artists that Malkon had caught were amoungst the demons.  
They all looked ready for something.  
"Or someone." Ryoga finished when Akane voiced that thought.  
"Well, we've come this far..." Ukyou looked determined even though  
she looked a little daunted by the enemy.  
"Come comrades! We will defeat these hordes of Hell with our valor  
and our skill! Forward!" And he started to walk towards the small army  
of demons.  
"Wait for me, elder brother!" Kodachi flew into the air, laughing like  
a maniac.  
The rest of the party looked at each other, shrugged, and followed  
them, ready to fight._ _ _

___"AGGHHH!!! That rotten, slimy, $#!t-eating, etc." Twister raged as  
she was compelled to dress into the wedding gown that Malkon had made for the  
occasion. The demon guard outside was used to curses but considering the  
source of them, one who had defeated his current Master, he was utterly  
relieved that _he_ was not the target of his charge's swearing. Privately,  
the demon hoped that Malkon was _very_ careful and not let this powerful  
being free. Not out of any loyalty but rather for his own hide.  
"THEN he forces me to wear this damned gown! Damned by its maker  
_AND_ its construction!" Twister fumed as she struggled with the complex  
gown which she had to figure out on her own how to wear.  
*GRRR! If Ranma and the others don't come soon I'll murder him myself!  
Binding spells or _no_ binding spells!*  
Twister let loose a howl of frustration along with a shout that echoed  
throughout the castle with its force, "I'LL KILL THE BASTARD!!!!"  
Demons shuddered while Malkon chuckled._ _ _

___Kodachi was having the time of her life. The flying belt and pouch  
that Twister had made for her made her far faster and agile then the flying  
demons attacking her. Her gymnastic routines were confusing the hell out  
of the Hell-flock. The ribbon that she used had been enchanted so that it  
couldn't break and responded to her even better than before. Snagging one  
demon with it, she would then launch the demon at another, creating a mid-air  
collision and then both dropping to the ground, stunned.  
"Hahahahahahahahaha!" Kodachi hadn't had _this_ much fun in a long  
while. Still, only using a ribbon was starting to become boring and the demons  
were learning. Thoughtfully, she remembered this Twister person's letter  
about the belt and pouch. It had said:  
"Kodachi. You're gonna _love_ this thing while you have it. The belt  
will only let you fly but with your gymnastic abilities and ribbon, you will  
be devastating. However, in the interests of your background and a break  
from using the same thing over again, I made the pouch. Havoc in a small  
package. To use it, simply reach into the pouch and think about what you want.  
The options are sneezing, sleeping, paralysis, confusion, and freezing powders.  
The powders cannot affect the owner of the pouch. Enjoy!"  
Laughing out loud, she decided to test it. Seeing a demon coming  
at her she reached into the pouch for sneezing powder, felt something in her  
hand, and threw it at the demon. It stayed unnaturally together until it hit  
the demon. Then it burst apart, causing the demon to pause and then start  
sneezing uncontrollably. It crashed, being unable to fly while sneezing that  
hard.  
This widened her eyes and Kodachi smiled broadly. *Time to try  
the others.*  
The sleeping and paralysis powders acted like their names. Confusion  
powder had demons fighting other demons. The last one, freezing powder, didn't  
paralyse like Kodachi had thought but rather iced up a demon so much it  
couldn't fly with the extra weight.  
She patted the pouch fondly. *Lovely thing, and so _many_ applications.*  
"Hahahahahahahahahahaha!"_ _ _

___Mousse wasn't having as much luck as Kodachi. He lacked her grace in  
the air though, as a duck, he had _some_ experience. He was running out of  
things to throw at the demons. That said a lot about the amount of demons  
attacking him.  
*I'd better save _some_ things for later, just in case.*  
He took out the gloves that Twister had enchanted for him and quickly  
put them on.  
*I hate to use this instead of my own weapons but...* He flicked his  
hand like he did to reveal another weapon. Instead, a card-shaped field of  
force snapped into existence. Mousse wondered what Twister had meant by saying  
that instead of a 'Bloody Card' he'd have a 'Stun Card glove'. He shrugged and  
threw the Card like any other weapon at a demon. The Card hit the demon, energy  
flashed, and the demon went unconscious to crash into the ground. A second Stun  
Card had appeared immediately after Mousse had thrown the first. He was  
surprised at the swiftness and effectiveness of the glove.  
Then he smiled.  
Using both gloves, he rapidly filled the area where he flew with  
accurately thrown Stun Cards.  
The sky was suddenly hailing demons._ _ _

___Ukyou was having trouble with the mass of demons attacking her. Kunou  
had been forced to stand behind her and they were fighting back-to-back.  
She was starting to get tired and was afraid they'd be overwhelmed. Suddenly,  
Kunou shouted in frustration.  
"I am Tatewaki Kunou! I will _not_ be defeated!" He swung at a demon  
and scored. "For I am the Blue Thunder..." Kunou's sword started glowing  
and the demons paused in startlement. Ukyou looked quickly back and saw  
what happened next. "...of Furinkan HIGH!" Without realizing it, Kunou  
swung his sword in a half-circle in front of him. Along the arc of his  
swing, blue lightning bolts shot out with multiple cracks of thunder.  
When he finished the swing, the area before him was temporarily clear  
of demons.  
A little stunned, Ukyou muttered, "Twister. You have a _bad_ sense  
of humour. At least it wasn't purple." She turned back to her own demons.  
"I wonder if..." She shrugged and swung her giant spatula into the beginning  
of a swing like Kunou had done. When it started glowing, she knew she was  
right and swung. No lightning for her. It was heat. LOTS of it. More  
than even the demons could handle and they were blown back, flaming, by a large  
shockwave that accompanied it. "YES!"  
Now she and Kunou were in a complete circle of devastation.  
*Twister _knew_ Kunou would say that. Must've figured that I would  
try the same thing.* Ukyou smiled. "I'd say we're cooking now!"  
Ukyou winced at her own pun.  
"These demons fall before our might!" Kunou looked as if he had  
expected that to happen.  
*Likely did.* Ukyou mentally snorted._ _ _

___Ranma thought things were looking up. All the others were finding the  
features Twister had talked about. Akane was using her freezing blast when  
she got in trouble. Kodachi didn't look worried at all, she was flying rings  
around the demons and laughing like a maniac while knocking them out of the  
skies. Mousse was finally using Twister's gloves and his portion of the  
sky was clear so he was launching...cards?...around Shampoo's area. Shampoo  
was just fine however, and launching her maces occasionally to keep her space  
clear. Ryoga was just plain berserk and demons were keeping a wary eye on  
the very strong human who threw deadly bandanas and wielded that incredibly  
heavy umbrella.  
However, Ranma knew that this was useless. They had to help free  
Twister or else the arch-demon would be able to wipe them out with no problem.  
He didn't think they would be a match for him now.  
Malkon was playing with them.  
The enchanted martial artists were starting towards them now but  
he knew he had to get into the castle now. The problem was that there were  
too many demons in the way.  
*What special options did Twister put in my equipment?* He had tried  
crossing his arms like Akane's but nothing had happened. The only time his  
armlets glowed was when he punched.  
*Wait a minute!* Ranma quickly glanced at Akane. *Akane's doesn't  
glow when she punches! Did Twister try to increase the power of my moves?*  
He tried a very fast series of punches. During which, his armlets and leg-guards  
glowed brighter. *That's it! It won't trigger unless I do a whole bunch of  
punches and there's only one manouver that I can do that would do it.*  
"Akane! I'm gonna try to get inside the castle! I think I've  
found my special option! Cover me!" He saw Akane nod. "Alright then!"  
He faced the direction of the castle doors.  
"KACHUU TENSHIN AMAGURI-KEN!" He rapidly threw the super-fast punches  
in the direction of the door. Ranma's arm-guards and leg-guards glowed brightly  
and a circle of purple light started to form in front of him.  
Realization dawned. *Twister choose me to be a gate-crasher in case  
there were too many demons! That means....*  
"Everybody! Get away from the doors!!!!!" Ranma shouted frantically.  
The flying pair saw the disk of light and flew out of the way. Demons  
flew into the space they had been, thinking they were running. The enchanted  
fighters that were almost upon the party saw the disk as well and ran as best  
they could out of the way. The path was clear of all humans now. Just in time.  
The disk suddenly started to move forwards. Ranma stopped punching  
and ran behind it, just barely keeping up. Anything in front of the giant  
disk was consumed in its fiery tempest. Ranma's companions threw all they  
could to keep the demons occupied.  
When he reached the gates to the castle, the disk merely burned a hole  
through them. Apparently, the disk had then reached a limit and slowly started  
to fade. Ranma was happy with that. It had done it's work and he was inside.  
Now that he was in hallways and rooms he had an advantage since he didn't  
have to look in all directions.  
Curiously though, there were no demons yet. *Must have sent almost all  
outside. Good.* Familiar with the layout of the castle. Ranma headed to where  
he had gone last time.  
*I hope you're ready Twister because I _know_ I'm no match for  
Malkon...*_ _ _

___More than ready was Twister. Ready to rip Malkon's head off his  
body and drop kick it into the Void.  
*If I get free, I'm going to let him know what True Hell is!* She  
fumed as she stood there. Malkon was leisurely walking around Twister and  
commenting on how she looked in the gown.  
"My dear, you look simply ravishing!" He chuckled at the rage that  
burned in Twister's eyes. "You must not get too upset. It _is_ true.  
Considering that I've been around a long time, I am a good judge of these  
matters."  
"As if I had a choice!"  
Grinning, Malkon replied, "I think I _know_ what you would choose."  
Twister narrowly looked at him with hate-filled eyes.  
"I must admit. You are remarkably well restrained for a person in your  
current emotional state." He looked puzzled.  
She snorted loudly, "And what good would _that_ do?!?! I _know_ you  
can freeze me in place instantly if you wanted to! You'd likely enjoy that!"  
Comprehension dawned, "Ah! So you restrain yourself to deny me further  
pleasure. Intelligently thought out. And correct." Malkon chuckled. "Well  
I believe it is time. I decided to have the leader of the mortal fighters  
here perform the ceremony. He reminded me of one of the more self-centered  
Overseers and it amuses me to use him to perform something like this."  
Rage sightly down, Twister queried, "Overseers?"  
Malkon nodded, "Overseers are to arch-demons as arch-demons are demons.  
Extremely powerful and are the second-highest position a demon can get in Hell."  
Seeing Twister's dubious face he nodded, "It is true. All arch-demons serve  
under an Overseer. Mine allowed me to leave for some fun. I am his current  
favorite this millennium." Malkon shook his head. "Anyway, now we shall proceed  
with the ceremony. Stand over there my dear." Malkon pointed to a spot on a  
raised platform and went to stand on a spot opposite.  
Twister was starting to worry as she walked over to the spot Malkon  
had indicated. Where _was_ everyone? Would they make it in time? *Oh _please_  
make it on time!*  
When Twister reached the spot, Malkon nodded in satisfaction and  
turned to the former owner of the castle. "You may beg..."  
"STOP!!" Someone shouted. Twister tensed but was shouting inside,  
*Finally!*  
Twister and Malkon turned to the entrance of the chamber.  
Looking a little ragged from random encounters with demons in the  
castle, Ranma stood bravely in the doorway. "I've come to..." His voice faded  
as he saw Twister in female form and his eyes widened. She looked  
heart-stopping gorgeous in the gown that Malkon had designed for her. His jaw  
dropped.  
Relief turned to major irritation as Twister saw his reaction, "Ranma,  
if I may remind you, you have the _same_ form when you get wet." She growled.  
Malkon laughed at this, "Ah, the champion arrives! Now we have to try  
to see who is the fair damsel and who is the brave hero." He chuckled. Then  
he smiled confidently, "I _was_ feeling rather disappointed on missing the  
action happening outside at the moment. Time for a fight, I think." Malkon  
motioned to the former leader of the castle and calmly said, "Kill him."  
Ranma groaned, "Kirin..."_ _ _

___Twister saw Kirin drop the scroll he was holding and walk over to an  
opposite position to Ranma. Malkon waved a hand and she felt a shield of  
force appear between the two about to fight and them. Twister looked  
over at Malkon.  
He smiled. "Just in case..."  
Then the fight started. Kirin was silent because of the enchantment  
and Ranma was thankful for small miracles. The black chop sticks Kirin held,  
however, did not look nice at all. Ranma moved swiftly to avoid Kirin's  
slightly slowed actions. He did _not_ want to touch those things. Afraid of  
touching them, Ranma didn't even _think_ of trying the same thing he had used  
to defeat him last time.  
Realizing this, Twister shouted out, "You can beat him, Ranma! You've  
done it before already!"  
Malkon smiled, "But now he fights a foe that has been equipped with  
magic of my making."  
"Well, he should still _try_ the same method! Come _on_ Ranma!"  
*Why is Twister so determined for me to do the same thing? All I  
did was dig a hot spring.... Oh. OH! That's IT! Twister needs HOT water!*  
Trying to sound exasperated, Ramna shouted, "Alright already!"  
He stopped dodging and positioned himself. Kirin stopped as well and readied  
himself. Suddenly, Ranma moved and punched...straight down. Blowing a hole  
into the floor and further.  
Malkon was confused. "How did he defeat his foe before with _that_  
move?"  
Twister just smiled a beatific smile.  
A rushing noise came from the hole which confused Malkon even further  
until the hot water rushed up, filling the room.  
Confusion turned to comprehension on Malkon's face. Then comprehension  
to horror. He whirled to Twister and stared in total shock.  
She was glowing with purple flames and smiling widely. "You prevented  
me from _casting_ spells Malkon. Not triggering ones already cast! This  
one's for you!"  
"DISPELL MAGIC!" The second of the spells she had laid upon herself  
was then triggered fully and rushed out in a wave of purple flame. It consumed  
the barrier Malkon had cast between her and Ranma, it attacked Malkon's personal  
protections, and it disrupted his control over Kirin.  
Running for the hot water, Twister dived in her gown. Malkon saw this  
through the strain of trying to keep his protections up and started to point a  
finger in her direction.  
Kirin, however, had been aware all this time Malkon had enchanted him.  
His rage at this arch-demon almost matched Twister's. He had luckily had his  
wife away at the time of the takeover with the twins but that still did not  
make him any less angry at being used like this. With an iron will, Kirin won  
enough of his control back to throw the black chopsticks at Malkon. When the  
sticks hit Malkon's defences, they blew up in a small explosion and staggered  
him.  
Twister was momentarily forgotten.  
This was quickly rectified by Twister's MALE voice shouting loud enough  
to vibrate the walls.  
"MALKON! YOU ARE TOAST!"_ _ _

___Chapter Twenty-Nine  
\-------------------_ _ _

___Staring in horror, Malkon saw Twister's male body outlined in his  
blue aura. The gown was in shreds around his body because of his rage and  
larger body. It no longer looked like a gown of any sort. That did not make  
him any less formidable-looking to the other three males in the room. His  
eyes were a completely glowing ice-blue now and looking right at Malkon. With  
a wave of his hand, Twister teleported Ranma and Kirin down to where the  
fighting was happening.  
Out of the _true_ battle zone._ _ _

___They reappeared near their friends who were still fighting.  
Kodachi was busy with Monron. She was frantically trying to wrap  
the, now, more than razor sharp strings with her ribbon, which the wire could  
not cut through. It looked like a stalemate until Shampoo threw a mace at  
Monron's biwa. It shattered and burst into red flame. Kodachi and Shampoo  
moved in to free Monron's enchantment  
Ryoga was shielding Akane from Muu. He had a giant belt on that  
apparently allowed him to breathe fire and throw fireballs from his hands.  
The umbrella Ryoga had was enchanted to shield people as its main function.  
It fulfilled it's task wonderfully. Kunou then suddenly attacked Muu from the  
side calling out "I am the Blue Thunder of Furinkan High!" The enchantment in the  
sword responded and multiple mystic lightning struck the belt. It melted  
and the thunder blew it off Muu. Ryoga then rushed up and leaped on Muu  
to free him with his palm.  
Mousse and Ukyou were busy with Ebiten. They were dodging his  
fishing line, which was everywhere it seemed and looked electrified.  
Finally, Ukyou launched her heat wave attack with her giant spatula.  
The line burnt away and the fishing pole was slightly charred as it protected  
Ebiten. Mousse immediately launched about twenty Stun Cards. Two hit Ebiten  
and he want down. The rest finished the job on the fishing pole. Mousse  
flew down to free Ebiten.  
All the lower demons appeared to be out cold.  
Ranma turned to Kirin and put his palm on Kirin's forehead. Kirin  
staggered a bit but stayed conscious. He smiled.  
"Kirin thanks you for saving the Seven Lucky Gods martial arts school  
from that fate." He saw the others of the party freeing the enchanted Seven  
Lucky Gods martial artists.  
Ranma looked up at the top floor of the tower. "It's not over yet."  
Looking up as well, Kirin nodded, "Yes. Who is this Twister that  
arch-demon seem so afraid of?"  
About to answer, Ranma was cut off by a large explosion. The top  
floor of the building had been blown apart by blue flames and a figure in  
a red aura shot out of control up from it. Another figure in a bright blue aura  
was right on its tail.  
Seeing Kirin stare in awe and feeling a bit of the same, Ranma finally  
said, "Someone he ticked off _big_ time."_ _ _

___Malkon was really starting to become worried now. His protections  
had been largely disrupted by the spell Twister had triggered. He was even  
more vulnerable now then when he had fought Twister last. To make matters  
worse, Twister was thinking more than last time and attacking more frequently.  
"ARCTIC ICEWIND ATTACK!"  
Malkon groaned as ice pierced his body. He Healed it but he couldn't  
last much longer.  
Trying to buy some time to think, Malkon rushed Twister and called  
his Black Blade into existence. Twister responded by making his diamond  
sword and getting ready. When their blades clashed, Malkon looked at Twister's  
eyes and shuddered. His doom lay in those ice-blue orbs.  
On the ground, the fighters could see the encounter. Twister hadn't  
tried to learn swordplay but he still blocked every move. The swords moved  
so fast even Kunou couldn't see them clearly.  
The combatants locked swords. Malkon was startled when Twister spoke.  
"I remember this little fight from last time Malkon. However," The diamond  
sword started to flame blue as Twister talked, "when you opened the Magic to  
me, the Mind part increased in power as well." With that said, Twister swung  
at Malkon in an attack for the first time. Desperate, Malkon blocked with  
his sword. When they met, the diamond sword shone blue flame brightly and  
Malkon's sword shattered. "Now there is a victor."  
Malkon threw what was left of his sword at Twister. The release of  
control allowed the dark forces free and streaked towards Twister. Flying down  
towards the castle, Malkon gained time while Twister countered the dark force  
with his own blue flame.  
Now in a panic, Malkon had but one hope of survival. He didn't want  
to do it but he had no choice if he wished to survive the hour. Teleporting  
was useless. Twister would just follow. Transforming himself was no good.  
His aura was too close to hide. Just one thing could save him. Plea for  
help.  
Not with the mortals but with his own Master.  
Flying into the wreckage of the top floor, he swiftly flew down  
the inside of the structure until he reached a sub-floor. He entered a heavily  
shielded room and entered.  
This was where he had summoned all his lower demons. Malkon had also  
kept in contact with his Master as was proper. He had seemed amused with  
Malkon's progress and towards Malkon's respect towards the mortal Twister.  
Sighing, Malkon calmed his mind and initiated contact.  
#Well well my current favorite. Something is disturbing you greatly.#  
%Yes, Master. Twister had planned for his/her escape and is now%  
%hunting me.%  
#Why did you call me. Do you wish for a favor?#  
%Sigh. You see all Master.%  
#What do you wish from me? I will demand a price you know.#  
%I know. Better that than non-existence.%  
#Twister is that strong? Very well. What do you want?#  
%A trans-dimensional switch with me and kill Twister.%  
#You think it will require an Overseer?#  
%Better safe than sorry.%  
#Very true. I accept. I will collect later.#  
%Thank you Master. I will not be easy till Twister is dead.%  
#I will start the procedure now. While it occurs you cannot be harmed#  
#and I will allow you to see through my eyes as I kill Twister.#  
%Thank you Master. I am ready.%  
As the transfer began, Malkon had to sigh. *What a waste.*_ _ _

___Twister was about to enter the castle when he felt uneasy. Something  
terrible was about to happen. Wondering what was up, he extended his senses  
in the direction Malkon had gone. He sensed Malkon's aura but it was slowly  
fading away. More alarming was the fact that another aura was appearing  
in exactly the same place, but much, much more powerful.  
*What the heck?* Twister was confused. *Malkon is fading and another  
is coming? Who would...?* Remembering Malkon's conversation with him about  
Overseers, Twister paled as he hung in mid-air. *He's not... He is! OHHHH  
SHIIT!* He rocketed down to the people below.  
Akane wondered what was the matter with Twister, he looked frightened.  
"What's wrong Twister?"  
"Apparently, I've scared Malkon out of his wits. Unfortunately, he  
called for help from his Master. I can sense his aura coming as Malkon  
leaves. Back to Hell, hopefully." Twister was wondering what to do.  
"How strong is his Master?" Ranma inquired. The long, hard look he  
got back was answer enough. "What do we do?"  
Pausing, Twister appeared to be considering something, then he  
answered, "Keep him amused for a minute or two. Or I should say 'blast him  
as hard as you can'. I think I might have a way, if an idea about my nature  
is correct. I'll be at the final gate." He rose from the ground.  
"How will we know you're ready?" Ryoga demanded.  
With a grim face, Twister replied to that question as he flew away.  
"Oh, you'll _know_."_ _ _

___Chapter Thirty  
\--------------_ _ _

___The group standing near the castle watched Twister go to the final  
gate.  
"How the heck will we know when this Overseer comes?" Ranma wondered out  
loud. The earth trembled. "I hadta ask."  
From the hole in the doors, flames rushed out in a stream. Flame was  
soon was shooting out of every part of the castle open to the air. Then, the  
building collapsed in a fiery heap. The watchers looked on as a form struggled  
effortlessly out of the rubble of the castle. They gasped. He was huge!  
Thirty feet tall, the Overseer stepped out of the rubble. He was not as human  
looking as Malkon had been. He looked more like a red, giant minotaur.  
Flames roared out of his bull-like nostrils and his hooves sizzled the grass.  
"I understand the 'amused' part now." Ukyou faintly said.  
The bull-head looked around and then bellowed.  
"WHERE IS TWISTER?" He spied the mortals on the ground.  
Ranma shouted, "He's not here at the moment! Did you want to leave  
a message?" The others stared at him. *Musta been around Twister too long...*  
"AMUSING. BUT NOT THE ANSWER I SEEK. WHERE IS TWISTER?"  
"I _said_ he's not here!"  
The Overseer paused for a second, wondering where to start looking.  
Meanwhile, the group had gathered together.  
"We're only gonna get one shot so everybody hit him with your best  
shot at once." Ranma told them.  
Nervously looking at the Overseer, Akane said, "Are you sure about  
this Ranma?"  
"No. But Twister needs time I think. This will give him it. Let's go!"  
They positioned themselves around the Hell-creature and at a signal  
from Ranma, attacked all at once.  
Akane used her frost blast.  
Kodachi her freezing powder.  
Ranma with the advancing, light shield.  
Ryoga with a powerful ki-blast.  
Ukyou with her heat wave.  
Shampoo with both maces.  
And finally, Kunou with his Blue Thunder move.  
The heat, cold and energy blasts collided with the Overseer's legs and  
he stumbled a bit then stood still again.  
Unharmed, the Overseer looked down at the mortals.  
"Oboy." Ranma muttered.  
"YOU SEEK TO GAIN MY ATTENTION? I WILL ASK ONE MORE TIME. WHERE IS  
TWISTER?" The Overseer sounded mildly annoyed.  
Ranma was about to speak again when a gigantic voice interrupted him.  
"YOU WANTED HIM AND NOW YOU GOT HIM! AND BOY! ARE YOU GONNA REGRET IT!"_ _ _

___Several minutes earlier, Twister had sat down, wondering how to  
beat the Overseer, at the final gate.  
*I've survived the Event! But can I beat this Overseer though?* He  
pondered that fact for a few seconds.  
*I wonder. _Can_ I access the Event directly? It _is_ the source of  
all Magic and Mind but _I_ in a way _am_ it. Or rather, a small representation  
of it. I am Mind and Magic too as a result of entering the Event. Could  
a small Event access the much larger Event and tap a very small part of it for  
a minute or two?* Twister thought about it and decided. *It's my only option  
left that I can try right now. I'd better start.*  
Twister gathered his strength and dived deep into his being. He had  
much more control over his powers than when he had first arrived but nowhere  
near anything approaching competence yet. A rough ride was ahead. Diving deeper,  
he could see a strange sight in his mind's eye. It was the junction between  
his Mind and Magic powers, it looked just like the Event. He could feel that  
it was a part of him now. Now and forever. And since it was part of him,  
he could command it to open a very small channel of Power from the larger Event.  
He did so.  
Power rushed forth, into both Mind and Magic halves of his being. He  
felt like he was being torn apart and in opening his eyes saw that he _was_ in  
a way. She/he saw from two sets of eyes. Disorienting. One faced the other.  
Separate yet together. An Event. Blue flame covered his/her male form and  
purple the female form. Yet she/he must be _one_ to _use_ the power. That was  
obviously the next step. She/he chose the male form to be the end result of  
the union. She/he then touched palm to palm and concentrated. Her/his  
forms moved together again but the flames did as well. A male form appeared  
but with powerful blue/purple flames roaring about it. The strain of  
Mind/Magic forced together was incredible. Twister could not do this for long.  
He stood up and found his body glowed a brighter blue/purple than the flames.  
Twister had also grown to be forty feet tall. Only a minute he sensed could he  
remain like this so he hurried to the castle.  
He heard the final query of the Overseer and answered it.  
"YOU WANTED HIM AND NOW YOU GOT HIM! AND BOY ARE YOU GONNA REGRET IT!"_ _ _

___Overseer and mortals alike gaped at the glowing figure rushing towards  
the Overseer.  
"WHAT THE...?!" The Overseer was astonished. The power radiating from  
the glowing figure was immense! That was the last thought he had a chance to  
form before Twister attacked.  
Twister made a flying tackle at the smaller figure and thought, *Time  
to _really_ turn up the heat.* He concentrated almost all his power on the  
Overseer in his grip.  
The Overseer screamed. Flames of Mind/Magic consumed his body, his  
magic, and his mind. The overwhelming power of the Event shattered his  
defenses and then his life. His form was consumed instantly in Twister's  
grip as Mind/Magic flame flowed into it.  
He had not much time left and Twister wanted to do some more.  
Summoning his power he did two things, he found every demon in the area and  
flung them home by means he instinctively understood in this form and then,  
facing the castle, he released the rest of his Event borrowed power to  
restore the castle to its original, undamaged state.  
Feeling himself shrinking, Twister sighed in relief that it had worked  
and fell deeply into unconsciousness._ _ _

___Everyone stared in awe as the glowing, now-forty foot tall figure of  
Twister tackled the Overseer. They ran away from the titans as they did not  
want to get trampled by the battle.  
Which was very brief.  
They stopped at the Overseer's cry of death and turned to see Twister  
finishing off the Overseer by consuming him in flames.  
Then Twister stood for a second and everyone wondered what he was  
doing now. Suddenly, demons everywhere vanished from where they lay. Twister  
turned to the pile of rubble. The castle reappeared. Unharmed.  
They then noticed Twister starting to shrink and sighing.  
Before they could get to him, he had collapsed on the ground,  
unconscious.  
They gazed in awe at the crumpled figure at their feet.  
Ranma then commented with a little awe, "I have a feeling he's going  
to feel THAT in the morning..."  
Kirin stared at his now restored castle in wonder. "Kirin had thought  
he would have to rebuild again. Now there is no need. Kirin invites you all to  
stay for the night. You look weary." He looked respectively at Twister's form.  
"He will recover better in a good bed. Kirin's own. It is the least Kirin  
could do. For his generousity."  
Akane smiled, "Thank you Kirin."  
"The pleasure is Kirin's."_ _ _

___Twister woke up to the biggest headache he had ever had in his life.  
When he tried to move without opening his eyes, he found out that every  
square inch of his body ached. A lot. Opening his eyes, he saw he was in a  
wonderfully soft bed with a canopy. He tried to sit up but pain flared  
and he saw spots before his eyes as unconsciousness threatened again.  
"Uhhhhhh....." He groaned.  
A door opened quickly and Akane rushed in.  
"Twister! You're awake!" She cried with joy.  
He waved his hand down. "Please... lower the volume. My whole head  
echoes."  
Speaking more softly, Akane asked, "How are you?"  
"Other than I have a headache the size of the Overseer and ache over  
every part of my body, I'm ok. I won't try sitting up for a few more minutes  
though." Twister groaned and held his head. "I am _never_ going to do that  
again. Once is enough and I really don't like pain." His stomach growled  
out loud. Twister was startled. "I _must_ be tapped out if my stomach is  
complaining _that_ much." He checked his power. Almost nonexistent. "Yup.  
Tapped out. How's the food around here Akane?" Twister grinned weakly.  
"Ok if you don't mind pickles." She grinned.  
"Right. I forgot. Nevermind, I don't care. I need anything I can get  
if I want to recover any faster." He sighed. "I sleep long? Hours, days,  
weeks?"  
She shook her head. "About a day."  
Shocked, Twister muttered, "Jeez. I must heal faster than I thought.  
I ripped myself apart pretty badly." He tried sitting up again and managed  
to stay up. "Another victory! Now to stand."  
Ranma then walked in after hearing Akane earlier, "Hi Twister! You  
ok?"  
Giving the grinning Ranma the Evil Eye, Twister growled, "Yes, once  
this echo from your voice goes away."  
Turning to Akane, Ranma chuckled, "I _said_ he'd have a headache."  
"Yes, and so does Akane now. Cure? Throw Ranma out of room. Shall  
I start treatment now or do I kill you later?"  
Ukyou walked in, "If he's making jokes, he must be ok."  
Twister sighed with great suffering, "Why me?"  
Taking something from behind her back, Ukyou placed it in front of  
Twister. It was a large pile of pickles.  
"Food!" He immediately started devouring the pickles. Less than  
two minutes later he finished them all. "Ahh. That's better."  
Ukyou, Akane, and Ranma stared.  
Smiling, he told them, "I _said_ I was hungry."_ _ _

___Soon, because of the pickles, Twister felt good enough to walk, though  
he still ached and his headache was only down a little bit.  
The three escorted him to the hall where Malkon was about to marry  
Twister.  
"Brr. That thought still gives me shivers."  
"What thought?" Ukyou asked.  
"Malkon marrying me. Now _there's_ a fate worse than death."  
Akane and Ukyou were shocked, "He was going to _marry_ you??" They  
exclaimed. Then laughed.  
Raising an eyebrow, Ranma chuckled, "You should have seen him in that  
wedding gown Malkon made."  
"You _did_ as I recall. I had to remind you to pick your jaw off the  
floor." Twister sarcasticly said. "Even though _you_ have the same damn body  
after getting wet! Malkon compelled me to dress myself. Damn thing had more  
buttons than I could count."  
Akane and Ukyou laughed again.  
Twister sighed, "No pity. No pity at all."  
"Well, we do have a lot of sex appeal in that form." Ranma offhandedly  
said.  
Akane smashed him into the wall.  
Chuckling, Twister thanked Akane, "Ah good. That saves me the trouble  
later."  
They then entered the hall, with Ranma a little wobbily behind them.  
Kirin was sitting on his throne with his fellow martial artists standing  
beside it. The party stood to either side of the hall.  
"Ah, you are awake at last Twister." Kirin smiled.  
Twister smiled back, "Pardon me for not bowing. If I did, I might  
keep going till I hit the floor."  
Kirin chuckled, "Kirin understands. You did a mighty thing and mighty  
rest is required after such tasks."  
"That particular mighty thing I don't care to repeat. It's a little  
too...hazardous to my health." Twister sighed, "But at least it got the job  
done."  
"In any case, the Seven Lucky Gods school of martial arts is thankful  
for what you have done. Anything you want, within Kirin's powers, is yours."  
Smiling, Twister replied, "I think what I want, most of all, is just  
some food and rest. My companions who came at my behest, also deserve a lot  
of thanks for battling the demons to get here. When I feel recovered enough  
we can go home. Unless..." A thoughtful look came to Twister's eye. "We _are_  
in China. Ranma, Shampoo, Mousse, do you want to? It would be something to do  
while here and wait for me to regain my strength. Maybe Ryoga too, you're  
strong, just to help me...in case I have trouble."  
The three mentioned, straightened as they remembered the cursed  
springs. Ryoga straightened as well, thankful that Twister hadn't mentioned  
him as being cursed.  
"Yes! Shampoo like to go!"  
"I, Mousse, as well!"  
"I can't believe we almost forgot again." Ranma shook his head.  
"Of course I'll help Twister."  
Suddenly, another thought crossed Twister's mind, "No..." He frowned.  
Wondering at this, Akane asked, "What Twister?"  
"Just a bad thought that came to mind."  
He still looked a little worried._ _ _

___Malkon wasn't too sure of how he felt as he rested after his ordeal  
in his inner chambers of his dwelling in Hell.  
His Master was gone. That was bad.  
Through the link they had shared, he had received some of the  
Overseer's power. That was good.  
Before the link ended, he had seen Twister glowing with power. That  
was bad.  
Twister had returned Malkon's demons. That was good.  
The other Overseers were saying he had planned the whole thing  
but would find out he couldn't have foreseen the result. Mixed good and bad.  
He was sure Twister wouldn't come after him since Malkon was in Hell  
again and Twister was likely sorely tired of dealing with demons for a  
_long_ while. That was very good.  
He guessed he felt fairly good about the whole deal and had come out  
a little ahead. The amount of excitement Malkon had had would likely last him  
ten thousand years. Not that he would be anxious to have _that_ much excitement  
again. It had been a little too close for comfort.  
It was a pity though.  
Twister had looked _very_ nice.  
Malkon chuckled._ _ _

___Chapter Thirty-One  
\------------------_ _ _

___Travellers walked up a misty trail hidden in the mountains. Five  
figures walked upon it.  
The man who called himself the Guide spotted the five people  
approaching him. They looked vaguely familiar, except for one.  
The one that did not look familiar spoke, "Is this Jusenkyou?"  
"Yes it is, sir. Famous cursed springs of Jusenkyou you have found.  
I am here to help you understand the many strange and terrible curses that  
are found in each spring." He bowed.  
"I believe you may have seen a strange figure come this way earlier?"  
The One asked. The other four appeared excited.  
"Oh yes, sir. Very strange that one. He ask about one cursed spring  
and then asked to be alone. When I came back, he gone!"  
"Hmm. I hope my fears are unfounded." The One pondered.  
"What are you talking about Twister? We're here aren't we?" Ranma  
asked Twister.  
"You ask this fine gentleman here what you want. I think I'll wait  
here. I believe it would be useless for me in any case." Twister sighed.  
"Shampoo not understand. Why not work for Twister?"  
"It opened and allowed access to my Magic half. I don't think that  
door can be closed again. By anything. My power came from the source of all  
magic. It will easily be able to resist. It's my nature now."  
Ryoga strode forward and started talking to the Guide. Soon, all but  
Twister followed the Guide.  
Twister muttered to himself, "I _could_ be wrong about this. Malkon  
may _not_ have done that."  
He heard a few splashes in the distance.  
Silence.  
Then he heard angry shouts.  
"Then again, I _could_ have been right." He chuckled.  
The four people he had come with came back. Bone dry.  
"How did _you_ know this would happen?!" Ranma shouted.  
"Malkon likely believed that I could be cured by coming here. I think  
he's wrong but he likely didn't want to take a chance for me to remove my  
weakness. He likely cast something so that cursed people couldn't touch  
the cursed water again." Twister sighed.  
Ryoga demanded, "Can't you _undo_ it?"  
"I can't touch water. By Mind _or_ by Magic. I still can't figure  
it out." He shrugged.  
"What was clear liquid Shampoo pour over maces to enchant?"  
"SALT water. I enchanted the SALT and dissolved it into water. It seemed  
easier to pour onto something. That's the closest I can get to water."  
They all groaned.  
"Can't _you_ do something, Twister?" Ranma demanded.  
Twister chuckled, "Against a WATER-based spell? Not likely. _Resist_ it  
myself, yes, but on someone else?" He shook his head "Not a chance."  
Mousse sighed, "I guess we should get home then."  
"I'll be strong enough to take us all back when we return to Seven Luck  
mountain." He sighed. "At least I don't need to worry about Malkon any more."  
"Maybe something else, perhaps." Ranma chuckled quietly to himself._ _ _

___Nabiki was going crazy. Twister had managed to teleport a long letter  
relating what had happened but neglected to mention _when_ they were going  
to return.  
Genma tried to calm Nabiki, "They likely didn't know how long they  
would be, Nabiki. The cursed springs is a hard place to find."  
Soun looked curiously at Genma, "I would think you would be upset  
at not going, Saotome."  
"That's likely because he knows Twister could teleport him there  
anytime. Once he's _been_ to a place, he can teleport to it by psionic power."  
Nabiki acidly replied.  
Genma looked a little sheepish.  
She continued. "Ranma's the only person that really _needs_ to be  
uncursed. Then Mrs. Saotome wouldn't go head-hunting for them."  
Soun laughed. "You're right, Nabiki. Then Saotome could go at his  
leisure"  
Nabiki was about to say something similarly sarcastic to her father  
when...  
BOOOM!!  
The thunder of displaced air blew Soun, Genma and Nabiki away from  
where they were sitting and scattered them on the floor, looking at the  
arrivals.  
"Whoah! Can we make an entrance or what! Cannons roaring at our  
coming!" Twister grinned. "Have Twister, will travel!" He saw Nabiki glaring  
at him from where she was rising from the floor and his mood lowered a bit.  
"Uh... Maybe I should've sent a note first." He said sheepishly.  
Nabiki advanced on him with a strange gleam in her eye that Twister  
didn't like. "Uh, Nabiki, are you ok?" He started walking backwards, then ran  
with Nabiki close behind. "What did I do???" He cried as he ran upstairs towards  
his vacant room with Nabiki on his heels.  
The other arrivals looked at their departure and shook their heads.  
Ranma chuckled, "He faces demons, an arch-demon, an Overseer,  
and he _runs_ from Nabiki. That tells you something."  
In a dangerously quiet voice, Akane asked him, "What's that Ranma?"  
Oblivious to Akane's mood, Ranma went on, "Which is more dangerous:  
demons or girls. Obvious, from _his_ reaction." He smirked.  
She threw him _hard_ into a wall and for once, the other girls didn't  
object._ _ _

___Caught in a corner, Twister was trapped by Nabiki who was advancing on  
him.  
"Heh heh. Uh...are you mad at me?" He replied nervously.  
"Now why should I be angry? You've only been captured by an arch-demon,  
almost _married_ to him, faced off with a ten-times more powerful being, and  
couldn't send a letter for almost a _week_ after that! SO WHY DO YOU THINK  
I'M ANGRY?!" She shouted at him.  
Twister sighed, and looked her in the eye. "Because you were worried  
about me?" He softly said.  
Nabiki glared at him for a few seconds more before breaking down and  
going into his arms, sobbing. He stroked her hair.  
"I'm sorry. I've never been much for bringing to mind important things  
sometimes. But I'm getting better." He chuckled. "Not by much, I'll admit."  
She stopped sobbing, looked up into his eyes and forcefully said,  
"Oh shut up and kiss me already."  
"I haven't had much practice..." He started saying.  
"On the job training then." She pulled his unresisting head down to  
her level and kissed him. Twister returned the favor.  
Kasumi walked away from the door smiling._ _ _

___Ten minutes later, with Nabiki looking like herself again, they went  
back downstairs. They saw Ranma holding his nose and figured he must have  
gotten Akane mad again.  
"Another tiff with Akane?" Twister chuckled.  
Ranma nodded sourly. "Yesh."  
Nabiki looked around. "Did they all go home?"  
Akane walked back in, "Yes. They all wanted to go back to rest in  
their own homes again. Ryoga just wandered out for a minute."  
"Lost again, the idiot." Ranma muttered.  
Twister nodded, "It _has_ been a while. What time is it anyway?"  
Kasumi came out with food, "It's lunchtime."  
"No more pickles. That's a relief. They may be good but..."  
"You wouldn't want to live on them." Akane chuckled.  
Twister's stomach rumbled. "Geez. That teleport must have taken more  
than I thought. I'll have to go to some ice-cream parlor or something."  
"Too bad you don't have that gown. _That_ would get you a lot." Ranma  
chuckled.  
Mildly, Twister responded, "Ranma, I've gotten pretty good at  
teleporting lately."  
Ranma frowned, "Yes. So?"  
BANG! "Wahhh!" SPLASH!  
Calling out to the pond, Twister continued, "Do _not_ mention that  
gown again, please!"  
Akane struggled to hold her laughter in while Nabiki sighed, "Well,  
things look like they're back to normal around here."_ _ _

___After lunch, Twister sighed. He pondered on what to do with his time  
now that Malkon was gone. *I'd better make a diamond for Nabiki to sell. I  
think I may be getting low on funds.* Mentally going over what he spent on food  
he nodded. *Yup. Definitely going to have to. Maybe I should go into jewelry  
making. I have a lot of spare gold I TK'ed from the sea. Or maybe save that  
for gifts. A telekinetic can make all sorts of goodies.* Twister smiled at  
that thought and stood up. He was still hungry and he thought of going to a  
all-you-can eat place. *Time to put thought into deed.*  
He stopped by Nabiki's room and knocked.  
"Come in."  
He opened the door and stuck his head inside. "I'm still drained  
so I'm going to terrorize an all-you-can-eat place. Then I'll come back to  
make another diamond since those people you sold it to suggested they might  
want more. I'm low on cash and you too, I would wager."  
She nodded. "I haven't had to sell Kunou's negatives yet, though."  
Twister laughed, "_That_ was a good one. Well, I just thought I'd  
tell you before I charge myself up again." He smiled, "See you later."  
She smiled back, "You too."_ _ _

___Chapter Thirty-Two  
\------------------_ _ _

___After seeing the horrified looks of the all-you-can-eat place, Twister  
left.  
*Probably wondering how I can humanly eat that much and still live.*  
He chuckled. Twister suddenly remembered something about his enchantments.  
*Oh dang! I knew I forgot to tell them something! I'll have to tell them  
soon.* He started towards Ukyou's. *I'll tell Ukyou, then Shampoo and  
Mousse.*_ _ _

___Reaching Ukyou's, Twister went in and smiled at her. "Hello!"  
"Hi Twister! Ordering something?" She chuckled.  
"Nah. But you should've seen the guy's faces in the all-you-can-eat  
place. Priceless."  
Laughing now, she queried, "Why are you here then?"  
He sighed. "I remembered something about the enchantments. They'll  
wear off in likely another week. I'd just thought I'd tell you."  
Ukyou nodded, "That's good. I don't want to accidentally fry someone  
by mistake."  
A sudden idea flashed in Twister's mind, "Do you allow people to  
use your restaurant for parties?"  
Intrigued, Ukyou said, "It depends on the person. Why?"  
He smiled. "I just got this idea..."_ _ _

___After discussing the idea with Ukyou, Twister went to Shampoo's  
restaurant.  
*Somewhere along the way in China, Shampoo lost her interest to kill  
me. That's great but I wonder why.* He shrugged and walked in.  
He saw Shampoo waiting tables and Mousse in a corner table, again.  
"Hi Shampoo. Hi Mousse. I just thought I'd tell you something."  
Shampoo smiled, "Hi Twister. What matter?"  
"Those enchantments I made will only last for maybe another week. I'm  
still new at this stuff." He shrugged.  
"That all right. Shampoo not care much." She'd miss the fun though,  
Twister read in her eyes.  
"I did not need it much anyway." Mousse replied from the corner.  
"By the way... I've been meaning to ask you. What changed your mind  
about killing me? Not that I mind, but I'm just curious."  
She smiled, "Shampoo see now that just Twister's way of dealing with  
thing and not really mean to humiliate Shampoo in bad way."  
Twister chuckled, "You're right. I didn't understand why you had been  
so angry at the time. I guess I do now though." A mischievous gleam twinkled  
in his eye. "Just be careful the next time I get you."  
"You certainly are the trickster when you want to be," Cologne replied  
by the counter.  
"Sometimes. Sometimes." He grinned at Cologne and left waving  
good-bye.  
Shampoo got nervous. She called out, "You tell Kodachi about  
enchantment ending?"  
From outside she heard, "You think _I'm_ crazy??"  
Cologne chuckled as Shampoo sighed in relief._ _ _

___Twister soon returned home and started on that diamond.  
*Let's make the sucker a larger one this time. Same shape though.*  
He went though the same process as he had made all his other diamonds and  
the relatively small diamond was ready in half an hour. He stood up, stretched,  
and went to Nabiki's room again, knocking.  
"Hello?"  
"I come bearing gifts." Twister showed the diamond to Nabiki.  
"That's half again as large as the first one." She commented.  
"Heck. You saw large the teleport crystal was. It only carboned  
because of the immense magical power strains on it." He glaced at the one  
she now held. "The industrial and scientific applications are far less  
stressful on diamonds." He chuckled.  
Smiling at the diamond she commented, "Anything else?"  
Twister grinned, "As a matter of fact..."  
She sighed, "I should have known."  
"I asked Ukyou first because I was curious about something and now  
you, since you I wanted to ask from the beginning for this."  
Raising her eyebrows, Nabiki asked, "What are you talking about?"  
"We never really did have a proper celebration for everyone..."_ _ _

___The next two weeks Akane and Ranma didn't see much of Twister. He  
always seemed to be going somewhere and there was a strange smile on his  
face almost every time they saw him.  
"At least he's not grim this time, like he was before." Ranma  
commented after school.  
"True. But what is he doing? And where? He's not doing anything in  
his room. Father looked." Akane was puzzled.  
"Knowing him, it'll be different I bet."_ _ _

___Evidently, the next day, which was a Saturday, was the day Twister  
would reveal his secret. Akane found a envelope with her name on it in her  
room. She opened it and looked in wonder at the card inside. It was minutely  
detailed with what looked like gold to Akane and her face was the background  
for the card. It read:  
\----------------------------------------------------------------  
Twister would like you to come to Ukyou's restaurant to discuss  
an important matter relating to the recent trip to China.  
Please do not have lunch as refreshments will be served.  
Time will be 4:00pm  
Thank you,  
Twister.  
\----------------------------------------------------------------  
*What in the world is he up to now?* Wondered Akane. "Ranma!"  
"Yeah?" She heard faintly.  
"Have you found a card in your room?"  
"No. Why...wait. I just found one." Pause. "I guess we'll be finding  
out what Twister has been up to."  
"I wonder how he put these...never mind. He's Mr. Invisible when he  
wants to be." She sighed.  
"This gives me something to do today now." Ranma commented outside  
her door.  
"We'd better get ready then..."_ _ _

___At 4:00pm everyone who had gone to help Twister in China was seated  
at a very large table for the number of people involved. Twister had had to  
teleport Ryoga again.  
Twister and Nabiki walked out of the kitchen with Ukyou and seated  
themselves.  
Looking very serious, Twister began, "I realized soon after we returned  
from China that we had forgotten one major detail. I have been working in  
secret with the help of Nabiki and Ukyou to remedy that problem." He gazed at  
everyone at the table solemnly.  
"What we miss Twister?" Shampoo asked nervously.  
In answer, Twister raised his hands and clapped.  
The clap became a thunderclap as huge amounts of different sorts of  
food and drink appeared on the table simultaneously.  
Twister grinned widely, "We forgot to celebrate getting home in one  
piece of course!"  
Everyone was stunned with the amount of food prepared.  
"H-how did you _get_ all this Twister?" Akane stammered.  
"I _made_ most of it. With help from Nabiki and Ukyou of course." He  
grinned.  
"Most of it?" Ranma looked at the vast amount of food.  
Twister continued, "Of course, magic spells to keep things fresh  
helped."  
"So _this_ is what you've been doing!" Akane accused.  
"Guilty as charged ma'am. This is just my way of saying thanks." He  
paused then chuckled, "If your eyes don't convince you then let your noses!  
Dig in!" Twister started selecting various foods on the table. The rest of the  
group quickly followed.  
Several hours later, the group finally became stuffed and had to  
go home. They had mostly eaten, drank, or talked about what had all  
happened in China. Surprisingly, no one attacked anyone else though there  
were a few close calls that Nabiki or Twister managed to defuse before things  
got out of hand.  
One of the comments during eating was from Shampoo.  
"How you know to make most good stuff?" She was curious.  
Twister laughed. "I've always had an urge to cook every once in a  
while. Mostly desserts though. Most of the main stuff I learned from watching  
Kasumi for a few weeks and some help from Ukyou. Having a perfect memory now  
makes cooking a lot easier." He chuckled and handled a slice of pizza he had  
made. "Though some main dishes I remembered myself."  
Ukyou had tried the pizza and liked it. It was very similar to her  
own specialty.  
"I declare this meeting a success!" Twister announced, smiling  
widely. Then he looked at the still massive amounts of food left over.  
"Of course, I would be grateful if some of you took some of this stuff  
with you. Not even I could eat _this_ much." Most took quite a bit to  
Twister's relief.  
Akane, Ranma, Nabiki, and Ukyou were soon the only ones left.  
Twister grinned at Nabiki and Ukyou. "Well partners, looks like the  
operation was a success. Now to divvy up the spoils before they become the  
spoiled. Anything you want Ukyou, take now, or forever hold your peace."  
Ukyou took what was left of the pizza. Natch. "That it? Ok."  
Clapping his hands again, Twister sent all the food to the Tendo  
home. "I mentioned to Kasumi that I might be bringing a lot of food home.  
Mr. Saotome and Mr. Tendo should be nicely hungry by now." He grinned. "That  
takes care of half of the food. Three-quarters, if Happosei is there. Waste  
not, want not."  
"This was some surprise Twister." Akane said.  
"Well, I _was_ kinda glad everyone came to China. I thought this was  
the best way to show it. I felt the urge to make something anyway, and with  
my extra talents, this was well within my capabilities."  
"It sure was great eating it." Ranma commented.  
"Aren't you a fairly good cook Ranma?" Twister questioned.  
Nabiki broke in, "Sure. If you can manage to drag him through the  
kitchen door."  
"Or necessity? Like when Kasumi was sick?" Twister chuckled. Ranma  
glanced nervously at Akane at that comment.  
Akane was angry and also confused that Twister would know about the  
time she and Ranma had done a cook-off when Ranma's mother was there and  
Kasumi ill. Then she remembered that in Twister's world this universe was a  
story. Her look promised impending doom.  
"Perfect!" Twister said happily for some reason, "Now I can ask another  
question. Ranma or Akane, would either of you mind teaching me martial arts?  
I need something else to do or I'm going to go nuts."  
"Huh?" Ranma said.  
Akane felt the same way. "I thought you couldn't do that because you  
were afraid you would lose control."  
"In my _male_ form, yes, that's true. However, I have to call out a  
rhyme in order to do anything in _female_ form. To be really safe, all I have  
to do is not talk during a session." He looked pleadingly from one to the  
other. "I really would like to learn. It would help in a lot of things and  
I might as well use that form's advantages for things other than ice-cream."  
Twister chuckled.  
"I think Ranma better. He's faster than me and your body is already  
pretty quick." Akane conceded grudgingly.  
"And no future sight." sighed Twister.  
"Alright." Ranma agreed after some thought.  
Smiling warmly, Twister thanked Ranma.  
Turning to Ukyou, Twister thanked her again for the use of the  
restaurant.  
"No problem. Besides, you _paid_ me for it." Her smile belied the  
comment.  
"Well time to boom home. It's raining out so I'll take us to my  
room." Waving to Ukyou, he did so.  
BOOM!  
Appearing in Twister's room, the foursome then went downstairs. They  
found Soun, Genma, and Happosei still eating the leftover food.  
"Ah! The appreciative taste-testers. Two thumbs up?" Twister queried.  
"Excellent Twister! Practically like Kasumi's!" Cried Soun.  
"I should hope so. I learned most of the main courses watching her."  
Walking into the kitchen, he saw Kasumi, "Finish already?"  
"Hello Twister. Yes I did. You did very well." She smiled.  
"Had a good teacher." He chuckled. "Watching you make it helped a  
lot."  
"_That's_ why you wanted to watch!" She exclaimed smiling.  
"Yup. I don't cook too often though. Just when I have to or the urge  
hits me."  
Kasumi smiled again, "Well, thank you for doing supper for me today  
anyway."  
"No problem." He bowed and exited the kitchen._ _ _

___A little while later, Twister had changed into female form again and  
was wearing a gi. Ranma was standing opposite her.  
"I'll just go over the basics first." Ranma started showing Twister  
moves and correcting her occasionally. Twister had fairly good judgement  
in proper movement and she learned fairly quickly.  
After an hour, Ranma called it quits. "You're pretty good for a  
beginner. Must be those changes in your body."  
"Yup. I'd learn faster in the male form but this is safer." She paused  
for a second. "When we start practicing against each other...will you have  
a problem with this form or not?" Twister turned an inquisitive face at Ranma.  
Obviously, he had not thought that far ahead. "Umm. I'm not sure."  
"It's not like I'm actually a girl but if the form fits... If you have  
trouble with it then maybe _you_ could change too. That would be interesting."  
Twister chuckled. "And easier on you."  
Ranma thought about and sighed, "I think I'd have to change. I just  
don't feel comfortable hitting a girl but when I'm in the other form it's  
not as bad."  
"Ok then. When I get to the point when we can start sparring against  
each other, _you_ change as well." She paused in thought. "That might be better  
all round in case someone dropped in. That would compound your problems."  
Groaning at the thought, Ranma agreed, "If Kunou happened by..."  
Nodding, Twister agreed, "Exactly. 'Ranma! You fight the pig-tailed  
one? Die!'"  
Sighing, Ranma agreed.  
"Now _that_ will be a sight. Ranko vrs. Ranko. Double vision time."  
Twister thought of another thing. "Also, I need to do something with my  
clothes. If I ever change forms accidentally, I do _not_ want to wreck them.  
Hmmm. I guess that would require some thought and some magic."  
"You figure _that_ one out, could ya do the same for mine?"  
"Sure. No problem. Anything for a friend."  
Twister smiled at the words and reflected that things were definitely  
looking up in his...um..., *'Her' as well now I guess,* changed life._ _ _

___ _

___\----------------------------------------------------------------  
\-------------------- T H E E N D -------------------------  
\----------------------------------------------------------------  
\-------------------- F O R N O W -------------------------  
\----------------------------------------------------------------_ _ _

___Author's Note: This story WILL be continued! Stay tuned! :-)_ _ _

___Profile on Twister so far: Twister was once an average young man going to  
university before getting summoned accidentally by Happosei. He was  
thrown into a powerful phenomenon called the 'Event' which is a meeting  
of the sources of Mind and Magic in the Void. This act was done by an  
arch-demon going by the name of Malkon, as true names would give people  
power over him.  
The result of this action changed Twister from a normal being  
into something which even Twister is not fully aware of. Twister has  
great power now but not very proud that he has it. He doesn't really  
believe it makes him better than everyone else.  
Just a little different.  
Right now when fighting, he is reluctant to use his powers and  
will only use them if wounded, about to be killed, or angered. Twister  
is very slow to get angry enough at someone to use his power. He  
seems to be very attracted to Nabiki and time will tell how that  
relationship comes out._ _ _

___Twister's Powers: When these appeared first, he had powers of the Mind. These  
were apparent at first:  
Telekinesis(which he used to boost his physical abilities),  
levitation, teleportation, and a curious incarnation of mental power,  
mindfire. Prescience was also evident in his swordplay with Malkon.  
Other powers may be his but as yet undiscovered. Further testing showed  
that he could use some of these powers without calling up his full  
strength which is visible by the appearance of Twister's blue aura.  
Direct magical effects seem unable to affect Twister in this form.  
Twister's body was changed as well. He is much more stronger  
than he was before and his strength is currently greater than Ryoga's  
or Shampoo's without enhancing it with his power. Speed, reflexes,  
stamina, and other things have all been increased as well. He must  
eat like everyone else but he uses it much more efficiently and can  
store the energy for future use without much visible effect on his  
body. Exertion or use of his powers uses that stored energy more  
quickly. Digestion also seems improved remarkably though he does not  
need to eat if he has stored enough energy to not become hungry.  
The arch-demon Malkon viewed Twister's power with some thought  
and divined that there was more to Twister's power than mere psionics.  
He sent the same cursed spring water that Ranma had fallen into to  
Happosei, who proceeded to douse Twister with it. Twister's magic  
resistance failed dramatically because the water allowed Twister's  
other form of power to come to the surface. Magic.  
While in female form, Twister discovered that she was able to  
cast magic spells through the use of activating rhymes, visualization,  
and power. Magic is very versatile so only the effects Twister has  
accomplished so far is listed.  
Twister has been able to enchant objects with power for  
both offensive and defensive use. She has yet to discover how to make  
PERMANENT magical items, for her enchantments will fade if not renewed.  
Also has made a anti-scrying shield that covered an entire town in  
order to prevent Malkon from seeing what she was doing. Teleportation,  
message disk enchantment, personal defenses against domination and  
transformation, as well as flight spells were also made by Twister.  
However, the ultimate form of Twister's power is not by  
either Mind or Magic but rather by a unique combination of the two  
united by Twister's being. The use of the power was very stressful  
for Twister's body and incredibly draining. Fortunately, while in  
use, it is EXTREMELY POWERFUL. The energy of the powerful Event is  
directly channeled, in a very small amount, into Twister. This  
causes a separation of Twister's Mind and Magic forms and she/he  
must unite in order to use the power. Once combined, the power is  
amplified by the union and Twister's physical form grows accordingly.  
The actual amount of power is unknown but Twister blasted a fresh  
Overseer of Hell which was at least ten times more powerful than  
Malkon into dust in less than five seconds despite its formidable  
magical defenses. He also banished over a hundred unconscious  
demons back to Hell and rebuilt a totally destroyed castle.  
Twister had to rest for a week before being completely recovered.  
He might have recovered faster if he had eaten more than  
pickles._ _ _

___\--------------------------------------------------------------------------  
That's it for this one.  
Twister._ _ _

___Hope you liked Twister's little description here. :)_ _ _

___ _

___ _

___\--  
==============================================================================  
Darren Steffler a.k.a "Twister"- mail at  
==============================================================================_ _ _


	2. Twisted Path 2

Twister 

Alright! I've had it with editing! This thing is DONE! :) I've spent more  
time on this one than the first and I hope you people reading it like it.  
At least I made a little C program to make posting and mailing this  
thing easier...  
MAJOR, GIGANTIC, STUPENDOUS thanks to Rogue1 for being super-editor  
for me. :) You comments helped A LOT. (his fanfics a pretty GOOD too :)  
I think we went through this thing 3 times... ack. But it _is_ large  
and I'm still new to this so be prepared for a few grammar errors and  
possible spelling errors even though I tried to fix them all. Owch.

Points: This was done after the first so I was experimenting. Specifically,  
I was attempting to create a lot of new characters for a story.

I didn't name the college since I don't know Japan that well and  
better no name (and imagination) than a big goof up.

One name I made up. I HOPE it's a girl's name, but too late now.  
Azuka was in Ranma so I assume it could be.

Start is a little long, but I'll shorten the next one I do.

If you like this story, but haven't read the first, then (preferably)  
ftp at ftp.std.com /archives/anime-fan-works/Ranma/ranma.twisted.path.gz  
or if you don't have ftp...e-mail me at umsteff2@cc.umanitoba.ca.

Well, I think that's it. I hope you enjoy it.   
(You'd better... grrr. ^_^ Kidding.)  
And now...on with the show!

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Twisted Path - What to Prepare For.  
A Story Inspired by Rumiko Takahashi's Ranma 1/2  
by Darren Steffler

Story so far:  
\-------------  
Twister was once an ordinary computer science student who loved   
science fiction and fantasy. He had just gotten hooked on a popular anime   
and manga series called Ranma 1/2.  
In another universe, where the characters of this series were quite   
real, Ranma had just gotten old Happousei very angry at him. Happousei   
attempted to summon a demon to torment Ranma forever, but Ranma   
interrupted his spell and the casting went awry. It picked up Twister   
and an arch-demon going by the name of Malkon. Malkon learned about   
Happousei's weakness for female undergarments from Twister and later   
threw Twister into an extremely powerful phenomenon called the   
Event, source of all Mind and Magic powers everywhere, to ensure his  
own survival.  
Malkon, having escaped and finding the unfortunate martial-artists to   
be no match for him, was still planning what to do with them when Twister   
appeared. The angry, young man had been dramatically changed in   
appearance and in power as a result of the Event he had somehow escaped.  
This made for a merciless fight against an unprepared Malkon and he was   
soon defeated.  
Twister collapsed upon seeing Ranma change and they took him to the  
Tendo home to recover. When he woke up, he was himself again but confused  
and unsure of his power; he had little memory of the fight and none of the  
Event. He attempted to adapt to his new home and started having encounters  
with other characters of the Ranma story he had known.   
Unfortunately, the arch-demon Malkon was still very much alive and only  
weakened for the moment. He had his own ideas about Twister's new nature and  
acted on them. Twister was recovering from a bout with one of the Golden   
Pair when Happousei drenched him with cursed spring water that had been sent   
from Malkon. The effect was not a normal one, for Twister did not change   
immediately due to his magic immunity. However, his repressed  
Magic side came to the fore and warred with his Mind side to overcome the   
resistance. The conflict was dramatic, but the Magic side won because of   
Twister's new nature. He became an almost exact double of Ranma in   
female form.  
Depressed at this, Twister wandered a bit and found out from an   
encounter with Gosunkugi that she could use magic and thus found out _why_   
Malkon had sent the water.  
Later, Twister in male form had a dream about the future that was  
a vision of Malkon's plans for him, but Twister decided that future could be   
changed. About two weeks later, Malkon attacked and Twister   
was captured in female form. Nabiki, who was becoming very close with   
him, had been just told by Twister what to do in case this happened.   
Twister's plan was revealed and a party consisting of Ranma, Akane,   
Ukyou, Shampoo, Kunou, Kodachi, Mousse, and Ryouga was prepared. A   
captured Twister located a spot for the party to appear and activated one   
of two dormant spells. The party teleported to the spot.   
While Twister was taken to Malkon, the party fought demons and  
enchanted fighters of the Seven Lucky Gods martial arts school with  
their demon-enchanted weapons. Ranma broke through the ranks and managed   
to help free Twister, who then proceeded to defeat Malkon again. However,   
Malkon asked for help from his own Master, an Overseer of Hell. A being much   
more powerful than Malkon who sent him back while arriving himself to   
destroy Twister.  
In desperation, Twister dug deep into his own nature to find a   
way to defeat this being...and succeeded. The strain made him extremely   
weak and the party was unable to go back home for a while.  
About two weeks after coming home, Twister threw a surprise feast in   
thanks to those who came to rescue him. Later, he asked Ranma to teach him   
martial arts for something to do.   
This will not keep Twister busy for long though...

And now, another story of...The Twisted Path.  
This continues soon after the first story.

Chapter One  
\-----------  
A bed held a figure that had no covers on it due to the warmness  
of the night. It was a handsome looking, brown haired young man whose face   
appeared to be of Western origins. Hazel eyes opened and the person sat   
up and sleepily looked outside.  
It was a beautiful dawn Twister woke up to. The sky was emerging   
to become delightful blue with a few wispy clouds occasionally dotting   
the artist's canvas of an atmosphere. A day like this was rare in Japan.   
In fact...rare _anywhere_.  
*Ah, _lovely_ day out.* Twister blinked sleep from his eyes as he  
continued to look at the azure sky through the window. *I just gotta go   
outside and enjoy it.* Putting on some shorts and a T-shirt, Twister   
went outside.  
When the Saotomes came out, they saw Twister sitting in a chair that  
he had found somewhere. He was inhaling the morning air deeply, with a small  
smile on his face, and looked like he was enjoying himself doing nothing  
but gaze up at the sky. The T-shirt was off now, likely because it was just   
warm enough outside to do so.  
"Whatcha doing, Twister?" Ranma called out.  
"Just relaxing and taking in this great morning outside for a change,"   
Twister grinned before closing his eyes, trying to enhance the feeling of the  
outdoors he was getting.  
Ranma shrugged, not caring much right now, and started practicing   
with Genma.  
Unfortunately, Happousei was up early as well. He was sneaking out on   
the roof when he saw Twister relaxing in the chair...with his shirt off.  
"Hmm..." Happousei had come to lose his initial fear of Twister   
when he had seen more of the boy so his scheming mind worked its usual   
mischief. "Well, this looks like a perfect opportunity. Hehehehe!"   
Grinning, Happousei left the roof as he gleefully thought about what he   
would do.

When it was almost breakfast time, Nabiki woke up and came down. Grumpy  
as usual. She saw the usual morning practice of the Saotomes...and   
Twister sitting in a chair. He seemed to be enjoying himself immensely as   
he stretched his arms wide.  
"Great. A true _morning_ person." Nabiki just could not see how anybody  
could look that happy this early. She was about to call out something to  
Twister when she spotted another person in the yard. *What's Happousei  
doing with that bucket? Ranma is likely to get wet anyway...* Suddenly,  
Happousei, bucket, and an eyes-closed, _topless_ Twister, clicked.   
"Oh no. TWISTER!"  
Jolted by the shout, Twister quickly opened his eyes and sat   
up...just in time to get doused by the bucket of water Happousei   
carried. Twister was surprised as he sputtered from the unexpected splash.   
"Phtt!! What the heck is...AGGHHH!!"  
The reason for the cry was Happousei, hugging her, with his head on her  
bare chest. "Ah! Another lovely girl for me! Hehehe!"  
Unfortunately for Happousei, Twister was very strong, even in girl   
form. She stood up, ripped Happousei's grip apart, and tossed him with all  
her strength away. As Happousei went flying, Twister shouted, "HENTAI!"  
She picked up her shirt from beside the chair and put it on. "Jeez! Can't  
I enjoy the morning in peace?" She walked over to the table and sat down,  
fuming a bit at the old hentai's interruption.  
"Not with Happousei around," Nabiki chuckled.  
"He _would_ have to finally lose that fear of me _now_," Twister  
sighed. "Oh, well." She heard a splash and turned to see that Ranma had been  
dunked. "I now have partner in misery," Twister smirked.  
A soggy, glowering Ranma-chan walked out of the pond.  
"Want a blow-dry so you don't miss a hot breakfast?" queried Twister  
as the wet martial artist reached the entrance to the house.  
Ranma-chan brightened up. "Sure! I can take a bath later." Then she   
frowned, "You're a girl now though."  
Twister grinned, "Makes it easier." She thought for a second and then  
said:  
"Winds blow hot to dry your defeat,  
For breakfast time is time to eat."

A warm wind blew though Ranma-chan's practice gi and dried it quickly.  
Looking more comfortable, Ranma-chan smiled, "You're getting better at  
making on-the-spot rhymes."  
"They may not be classics, but they work," Twister chuckled.  
Nabiki was thinking back to when she saw Twister stand. "Twister...  
have you been tanning lately? It looks like you did."  
Twister blinked in surprise. "Huh? I haven't..." Twister looked at   
her body since the mentioned tan had carried over. "What the...? I _do_ have a  
tan! And all over?? That's not right!" She was confused by the instant tan.  
"I _did_ think about tanning when I had my eyes closed, but it's too early  
for that. Besides, it also looks like I've been tanning for at least a week!"  
"Maybe it's because you were _wanting_ a tan, like you _want_ no one  
to see you sometimes. It's likely that if you can Heal your body by   
concentrating, then maybe you can tan without sun." Nabiki reasoned.  
Thinking about it, Twister had to agree, "Yeah...that makes sense.   
There's no _way_ to tan _this_ much for the time I was out there. I guess  
it's a Mind thing. Must have more control over my body than I thought."  
Everyone else came to eat then, and they started breakfast. Half-way   
through, however, Twister felt something odd. Like something was   
approaching. *Must be my magic senses. I really have to work on them, but   
what...?* Then the doorbell rang. Running though several possibilities   
before Kasumi answered it, Twister came up with the one person who would   
_ring_ a doorbell for _this_ dojo.  
*Oh, jeez. If I'm right...*  
Suddenly, Twister filled a glass with water and threw it in the   
face of Genma.  
"Grmpth!" Genma-panda shouted, shocked at the sudden splash.  
"Twister! What are you doing?" Akane was surprised. Ranma-chan laughed  
at her panda-father's surprised expression.  
"Shhheeeee's heeerree." Twister said in a quiet voice.  
"Who are you...." Nabiki started to say, then her face showed   
comprehension as she deduced Twister's actions for herself.  
Everyone else was still wondering why Twister had done that until  
Kasumi came in with the visitor.  
"Hello, everyone!" The visitor said as she bowed.  
"Auntie Saotome!" Akane, Ranma-chan, and Nabiki said in unison.  
"I thought I would surprise you by coming today. I came early,  
hoping to catch Ranma and Genma," Nodoka said as she smiled.  
"You just missed them," Twister smiled back.  
Mrs. Saotome was surprised at Twister's presence and looked over at   
Ranma-chan, aka 'Ranko'. "You never told me you had a twin sister, Ranko."  
"Probably embarrassed. I like to make practical jokes sometimes,"  
Twister grinned. "Hi. I'm Itazuka."  
Nabiki silently chuckled. *Quick thinking, Twister. At least now   
we have a name to call him while he's a girl.*  
"Well, you two _do_ look very alike, except for Ranko's hair."  
Mrs. Saotome looked a little sad. "So you say I missed them?"  
'Ranko' and the panda looked a little nervous.  
"Those two wake up pretty early. They left a while ago to train."  
Twister tried to get off the touchy subject. "So _you're_ Ranma's mother.   
It's nice to meet you," she smiled.  
Looking at Twister, Nodoka smiled as well, "And you too, Itazuka."  
Soun nervously asked, "Did you just drop by or did you want to stay   
a while?"  
"If it's not much trouble. I thought that if I stayed a few days I   
might catch them."  
*'Catch' is definitely the word.* Twister thought.  
Kasumi realized something, "Where shall we put you? Ah...Itazuka  
is in the other guest room."  
"Really?" Nodoka looked curiously at Ranma-chan. "Why isn't she  
with you and Mr. Panda?"  
"Ah...er..." Ranma-chan sweated a bit.  
Twister quickly supplied a reason. "I'm always afraid that panda   
of hi..hers will roll over at night and suffocate me. _That's_ why!"  
"That's right!" Ranma-chan exclaimed as she and Genma-panda nodded   
vigorously together.  
Nabiki spoke up. "She can bunk with me while Mrs. Saotome visits."  
Everyone except Nodoka stared at Nabiki.  
"That's fine then. As long as I haven't caused any trouble," Mrs.   
Saotome said.  
Twister was blushing fiercely as Nabiki said, "No trouble at all.  
Maybe you'd better start now, Itazuka." The last part was said with a smirk.  
Quickly, Twister stood up and walked away towards her room.  
*Oh, boy. I _guess_ this is the best way, but Nabiki...the same   
room??*

Chapter Two  
\-----------

Twister had just finished moving everything over to Nabiki's room  
when she came in.  
"Why did you _say_ that?" Twister blushed as she spoke.  
"Well, it was likely to be either me or Mrs. Saotome." Nabiki   
replied, unruffled by Twister's response.  
Calming down, Twister sighed, "You're right. This is _not_ going  
to be very comfortable though."  
"Why, Twister! I thought you liked me." Nabiki raised an amused   
eyebrow.  
"I do! This is a little heavy right now though." She sighed again,   
"At least I'll be in girl form all the time."  
"More's the pity." Seeing Twister's face blush even more, she   
laughed. "It won't be _that_ bad. Besides, you can practice magic while   
you're like that."  
"Hmm. True. I _did_ want to work on a few things. Like clothing  
that will adjust to me when I change. That would be a plus." Twister  
chuckled, "And for Ranma too." She turned to Nabiki. "Would you  
mind helping me with that project? I've never been big on fashion."  
Nabiki's eyes gleamed. "Work on something magical for clothing?  
_This_ I _have_ to be a part of, since you'll be wearing it."  
"Well, no time like the present." Twister selected some of her own  
clothes. "We'll work with _this_ first, I guess..."

It was lunch before Nabiki and Twister finished one complete set of  
clothing. You could tell it was magical...if you really looked at it.  
The others at the table gaped a little when they saw Twister come down.  
Twister had decided on color-coding this particular set of clothing.  
A rich purple material made up shirt and pants. The top was the same shade  
of purple as the pants. It fit well on her body and was very versatile for   
it didn't restrict movement at all. The shoes matched the pants in color   
and seemed to absorb light with their purpleness. It seemed that the   
material shimmered a bit and a blue tinge lurked within the material,   
hidden but sensed.   
Twister had also added a few..._features_ that were not visible.  
"Those clothes are _very_ nice, Itazuka. Very striking. It suits you   
well." Mrs. Saotome commented with an approving eye.  
"Thank you, Auntie Saotome. I like it too."   
Nodoka smiled warmly at the title.  
"When did you get _that_?" Akane said, eyeing the material.  
"A _little_ while ago. Nabiki helped me get it," Twister grinned,  
"though I talked with Ranko before deciding about it."  
Ranma-chan silently inquired with an eyebrow and Twister answered   
with a brief nod.  
"But you really shouldn't wear something new like that to eat,"   
Kasumi said, distressed.  
"Oh, I wouldn't put much worry to that. I made sure something like that  
wouldn't happen with this."  
"Really? How did you do that?" Mrs. Saotome inquired curiously.  
"I have a few talents." Twister smiled mysteriously.  
Mrs. Saotome smiled and nodded. "I guess we all do."

Later, Twister got Ranma-chan to go to Ukyou's together.  
"I'll show you there." Twister chuckled on the way, guessing the  
question that was on Ranma-chan's mind.  
When they entered, Ukyou smiled at them both. "Hi, Ranma! Hi,   
Twister! Why are you both like that?" She looked at the pair and had to   
smile. "You look very cute together," Ukyou chuckled.  
"Thanks, Uc-chan." Ranma-chan sourly said.  
"Ah, well. Notice the new duds?" Twister pointed to herself.  
"I did. They look impressive. Where did you get those?" Ukyou   
examined the clothing from where she stood.  
"Made 'em with Nabiki's help. They fit my special needs for clothes.  
Can I borrow some hot water to demonstrate?"  
Ukyou looked puzzled, but complied and handed Twister the   
requested liquid.  
"I'll just duck in back and be right out." Twister smiled as she  
disappeared behind a curtain that separated the kitchen from the dining  
area. A few moments later, Twister came back out in male form, looking very  
different. He was now in a similar style of suit, but one of a deep blue   
color that hinted at purple. It fit this form perfectly too.  
Ukyou gasped and then applauded. Ranma-chan looked at the altered  
garments with a happy look.  
"That's amazing! You _must_ have used magic." Ukyou exclaimed.  
"Uh, huh. Only way to do this without a whole bunch of problems and  
it fits in _both_ forms, which makes it great," Twister grinned. "I'll do   
some for Ranma soon. I need to find out how to make it permanent though.   
Right now this thing would only last a month if I didn't recharge it. But   
that's a reasonable time."  
"Any other surprises?" Ukyou smiled.  
"Of course! You doubt me?" After those words, Twister started floating  
up.  
Ranma-chan wasn't impressed. "So what's the big deal? You've flown   
before."  
"True...but I'm not flying by my own power now."  
"You mean you can fly using _that_?" Ranma-chan gaped.  
"Yup. Now I can fly in both forms. Also, it's stain and water proof.  
It uses a thin film of air to protect it _and_ its practically unrippable."  
Twister bowed in mid-air. "Anything you ever wanted in clothes in one package.  
I'll likely need every feature."  
"Wait a minute! Aren't you immune to magic?"  
"Yes...but me and Nabiki accidently found out that I could control  
the flying part of the enchantment as a guy. I must be broadcasting my  
commands and the suit picks them up because the magic isn't being worked   
_on_ me." Twister frowned slightly, "Though as a girl I'm affected by the   
flight spell as well. Just the clothes fly when I'm male. Pinches a bit."  
"The size changes are all I need though." Ranma-chan said.  
"You sure?"  
"Of course I am! Why would I need..." Her voice trailed off as   
Ranma-chan realized how many shirts, and occasionally pants, she had gone   
through in the past few months alone. "Um... Maybe I will after all, but  
not the flying part."  
"Sure thing. I had a feeling you would want the other options." Twister   
grinned and came back down to earth. "I'll need some cold water now. Ranma's   
mother is visiting and she saw me in female form first. We are now   
officially twins."  
Ukyou's eyes widened in realization. "So that's why you were both like  
that!" She turned sad eyes on the now depressed Ranma-chan. "Poor Ranma. I'll   
get that water for you, Twister. And some okonomiyaki for Ranma!"  
Ranma-chan brightened visibly as Ukyou went into the kitchen.   
*She definitely knows how to cheer Ranma up.* Twister inwardly smirked.

A few minutes later, the two almost look-alikes were walking back   
home.  
"When do you think your problem with your mother will be solved?"  
Ranma-chan sighed. "I don't know. That stupid promise of Pop's  
is the whole problem."  
"I believe he's made a lot of those." Twister commented.  
"Tell me about it." Ranma-chan growled.  
"I don't think that..." Twister started, but was interrupted  
by a shout behind them.  
"Pig-tailed goddess!" A familiar voice called out.  
"Oh, no." Groaned Ranma-chan as she turned around to face the   
owner of the voice. Twister just chuckled and wisely kept facing forwards.  
"Ah, my love! I have found you! I have walked many paths just to hear  
your sweet voice tickle my ears with its vibrant tones of paradise calling."  
Kunou was standing before Ranma-chan who had her eyes half-lidded   
with resignation. Twister couldn't see this, but she could imagine and was  
waiting for the inevitable sound of Ranma-chan sending Kunou into orbit.  
Unhappily, Kunou asked, "But who accompanies you, fair one?"  
*Oh, _no_. Please Life, don't do this to me.* Twister prayed.  
It was unanswered. Kunou managed to slip around Ranma-chan and faced  
Twister. He was a little surprised.  
"What is this?! Has nature produced _two_ such flowers of the same  
beauty? It must be so, for the generousness of Heaven is unbounded and I,  
Tatewaki Kunou, the Blue Thunder of Furinkan High, is undoubtedly twice  
blessed for such to occur."  
About halfway though this, Twister put her hand on her face and   
sighed long and deeply. This time Ranma-chan chuckled behind her.  
*Oh, just great. Now Kunou might want to date me too. Just super.*   
Twister wearily thought. *_Now_ what do I do?* Twister thought for a second  
and decided to wing it. "So _you're_ Kunou." She said in a resigned voice.  
"My fame precedes me!" Kunou grandly said.  
"Actually, _she_ just told me about you," Twister replied while   
nodding towards Ranma-chan.  
Kunou naturally turned to Ranma-chan again. "Ah, my pig-tailed Venus.  
You have told of my prowess with the blade to your lovely sister? And sister  
she must be in order to have the same lustrous eyes and tho..."  
POW! Kunou went flying as Ranma-chan hit him hard with her fist.  
"I was wondering when you would do that," Twister grinned.  
"I can only take so much from him," Ranma-chan growled. "We'd better  
get out of this area or he'll find us again." She started running home.  
Twister followed, not exactly eager to face Kunou again in this state.

Getting home, the two finally sighed. They were safe.  
"When did you want to give me another lesson?" Twister asked   
Ranma-chan.  
"You want to?"  
"Well, since I have to be this way anyway..." Twister shrugged.  
Thinking about it, Ranma-chan nodded, "Sure. I did agree in any case.  
I'd say in about an hour and a half."  
"Ok. I'll find something to do till then." Twister smiled and went  
up to her room.  
Which had Mrs. Saotome in it. She was sitting and looking thoughtful.  
"Whoops! I forgot!" Twister was embarrassed.  
Nodoka smiled. "That's all right, dear. It's understandable."  
Twister was about to close the door when she said, "Would you mind coming  
in here and chatting for a while? I would like to talk to someone for a bit."  
She smiled again.  
Nervous, Twister nodded, "Um...sure." She went in and sat down   
opposite Nodoka. "What did you want to talk about?"  
"I gather you've just visited the Tendo's recently. I was just   
wondering what you thought of Ranma when you've seen and talked to him."  
Twister thought a bit before answering Nodoka, "I think he's a   
pretty nice guy overall. A little clumsy around girls, but he's okay."  
Twister mentally snorted to herself, *Like I'm any better than Ranma in   
that department.*  
Nodoka looked very happy. "I'm glad that you like my son. It   
helps me in finding out how good of a man he is." Her expression turned  
a little sad. "I have not seen him for so long you see."  
The sadness in Nodoka's face generated sympathy in Twister for this  
mother's plight, but as she knew about Genma's promise... Twister didn't want  
to lose a friend if Nodoka wanted to hold the male Saotomes to it. *Wish  
I could be sure...*  
"Why haven't you?"  
"My husband persuaded me that our son would be a much better  
man and martial artist if the two of them trained together. Alone.  
I only let him take Ranma away when he gave me his promise that he would  
succeed, or else both he and Ranma would commit seppuku..." Nodoka pulled  
out a long bundle and unwrapped it to reveal a very sharp looking sword.  
"...with this blade."  
Eyes fascinated by the blade, Twister nevertheless spoke up, "Ah...  
How old was Ranma at the time?"  
Wistfully, as she casually held the long sword, Nodoka said, "Seven.  
It's been hard to not see my son for such time."  
"Yeah. Pretty young to hold him to something like that though."  
"Yes, that is true," Nodoka sighed. "But family honor is at stake  
here," she mused out loud before Nodoka saw 'Itazuka' trying to hold back an   
expression of disbelief. "Something wrong?" Nodoka smiled.  
"But he's your son!" Twister blurted out.  
"And I have not seen him for more than ten years." Regarding the blade  
she held, Nodoka seemed to weigh it before going on. "My son was a fine  
child before my husband took him training and I do not think he could have  
changed so much that I, his mother, would be forced to use this blade.  
Do you think I would have to?"  
"Hardly."  
Nodoka really smiled then, "I thought not. I once had a dream  
about my son as I imagined him now. After that dream, I decided that,  
whatever I thought of my son, this blade would not be used." Carefully  
re-wrapping the sword, she went on, "Honor is important, but being a mother  
is far more." Seeing Twister's face, Nodoka queried, "Are you all right?"  
"Yes. Just something in my eye..."

Chapter Three  
\-------------

Ranma-chan was wondering what was keeping Twister when she rushed in  
with a practice gi on.  
"Whoo! Just about didn't make it. Sorry to keep you waiting."  
"No prob. Didya want to start off where we were from last day?"   
queried Ranma-chan.  
"You're the boss. It's up to you."   
Ranma-chan sighed and continued the lesson from last time.

An hour later, they stopped.  
Ranma-chan watched Twister wiping sweat off her forehead. "You sure   
learn quick. I can't believe the rate which you're picking this stuff   
up."  
"Must be because my reflexes are very good," Twister grinned. "I'm  
pretty fast, but much less experienced at fighting. That experience is   
what I'm lacking mostly. The moves seem to come naturally." She looked   
thoughtful, "Like a smooth wave of movement... Hmm. Ah, well. I guess   
I'll be able to spar with you soon. That should be interesting."  
Twister's teacher was looking a little dubious. "Yeah..."  
"Oh, come on! I'm sure you'll kick my butt for a long time to come!  
I may be picking this stuff up pretty quickly, but _you're_ the one who  
can think in fighting terms right now." Twister shook her head. "I just  
know the moves. I realize _that_ by itself isn't enough."  
Looking a little better, Ranma-chan smiled, "You're right. I don't  
know why I feel like this."  
Twister arched an eyebrow, "It _might_ be because you see me as  
being better than you in martial arts in picking this up so fast. I wouldn't  
worry about it. The only reason I'm likely going so fast is the Event.  
That's something that gives me a pretty big advantage. Almost like cheating.  
Think of it like that. Though it was a risky sort of cheating I'll admit,"  
Twister grinned.  
Ranma-chan rolled her eyes, "Okay, okay! You've made your point!"  
Twister bowed for Ranma-chan to leave the practicing room, "That  
accomplished... After you...'sister'." She smirked.  
Looking briefly like she wanted to whack Twister for that comment,   
Ranma-chan just left out the door with Twister chuckling behind her.

As they went to their rooms, Twister and Ranma-chan spotted Akane   
walking in the direction of the kitchen.  
"Where are _you_ going, Akane?" Ranma-chan looked a little nervous.  
Akane glared at her, "Mrs. Saotome asked me if I wanted to practice  
some more cooking with her. You got a problem with that 'Ranko'?"  
"Why? Did something happen to Kasumi? That's the only reason I would  
think we would be desperate enough to do _that_." Ranma-chan sarcastically   
said.  
Looking like she was about to attack Ranma-chan, Akane was interrupted  
by Mrs. Saotome who was coming down the stairs. "Now, Ranko, that's not   
nice. Akane just needs a little more experience in the kitchen, that's all."  
"Make that a _lot_ more," Ranma-chan muttered.   
Hearing this, Akane got even madder. "I'll show _you_ Ranko! I'll..."  
Mrs. Saotome interrupted, "Calm down, Akane. Let's go into the  
kitchen and start right away." She led Akane away from Twister and Ranma-chan.  
They heard Mrs. Saotome faintly say to Akane, when they entered the kitchen,   
"We'll just give what doesn't work out to Mr. Panda..."  
Ranma-chan sighed with relief, "At least _we_ won't have to suffer for  
_her_ bad cooking."  
Twister smirked, "Just 'Mr. Panda.'" She chuckled evilly before  
thinking about something different altogether.   
*I can't stand having Mrs. Saotome just keep waiting like this. She's  
too nice a lady to do it to. I think she could accept Ranma's curse   
after hearing what she told me earlier, but Genma wouldn't exactly help   
persuade Ranma to tell his mother.* Twister mentally sighed. *Maybe the   
next time she visits I can figure out a way to help Ranma. He's not very  
happy about it either.*  
*Next time...*

Supper was about a half-hour away and Twister was laying down on   
the temporary bed in Nabiki's room. Just thinking.  
*Sigh. I'm learning fast, but once I get pretty good..._then_   
what? I can make diamonds, but what do I want to _do_ here? I don't  
go to school, I don't have a job, so what am I supposed to do??* Twister  
sighed out loud. *I need _something_ to occupy my life, now that the worry  
of Malkon is pretty much over.* Anger flashed in her eyes briefly at the  
thought of the arch-demon. *That bloody gown....AGGHH! That _still_ ticks me  
off!* She shook her head. *Get it out of your mind and focus on what you  
were thinking on, Twister. I can't really go home because I'm not sure   
_how_ to do that and also because of my...changes. What _should_ I do?*   
Twister draped an arm over her head and sighed again.  
"And what are _you_ moaning about?" Nabiki's voice smiled from the  
doorway.  
Slowly lifting her arm, Twister looked at Nabiki, who was leaning on   
the inside section of the portal.  
"Oh, I was just thinking about what I'm going to _do_ with myself.   
Just practicing martial arts isn't exactly what I feel like doing for the   
rest of my life." Twister sighed. "It's good for me to do, but..."  
"It's not what you feel is right for you?" Nabiki looked curiously  
at the downcast Twister. "What do _you_ think you should do?"  
"I don't know! That's the whole problem!" Twister exclaimed. "I don't  
go to school so it's not like I'll be able to do much professionally."  
"Maybe you should then," Nabiki calmly replied.  
"Huh? Nabiki, it's a little late for me to go to school now. It's  
almost the end of the year for you!" Twister looked confused.  
Nabiki smiled, "Not school. _College_." She raised an eyebrow. "With  
that 'perfect memory' you always say you have, you should have no problem  
passing the college entrance exams. Once you've read all of the texts   
needed, of course."  
After staring at her for a few seconds, Twister slowly said, "True,  
but I don't have a high school diploma to back me up."  
Waving her hand loftily, Nabiki looked confident, "No problem. If you  
do as well as I think you will do, then it shouldn't take much. I think  
I can manage to get you a chance," she smiled wickedly.  
Twister chuckled, "I'm sure you can, if I know you." She sighed. "Ah,  
well. So much for a lazy summer."  
Nabiki snorted as she turned, hearing Kasumi cry lunchtime, "If I'm  
going to be busy, then so are _you_, buster."  
Rising to join her, Twister sighed again, "No pity. No pity at all."  
Nabiki chuckled all the way downstairs.

The next day, Mrs. Saotome left and things went back to they were   
before...with a few exceptions.  
Twister started reading every book that Nabiki had ever read, and was  
going to need to read, in order to prepare himself for the college tests.  
In between books, however, he started experimenting with making things other  
than diamonds with his mind. Basically, just purifying and shaping   
metals into little statues. It took a little while, but eventually he was  
making things almost lifelike in their detail. He, of course, used Nabiki as  
a model when she had the time. The results made her very happy.  
The day of the exams soon came and, thanks to Nabiki, Twister wrote   
them. He came out feeling rather relieved since he had known every point   
that required remembering something. With the problem solving parts, he   
had no trouble since not knowing the correct formulas had always got him   
before. The appointed time when the results came up proved him right. In   
fact, he had gotten a nearly perfect score which annoyed a few other   
students who had never seen Twister before.  
Nabiki just smirked, "So you thought you would have a _few_ troubles?"  
She looked at his score, "Few is right."  
Twister sighed, relieved, "_That's_ out of the way, at least."   
He smiled at Nabiki, "I didn't think you would have much trouble either."  
She waved her hand, "No problem. The hard part is doing the moving  
_after_ the tests."

Nabiki began making arrangements to get living quarters for  
Twister and herself. From reports she had received, she figured that   
renting rooms outside the college dorms would be best, due to their   
needing more privacy. After a moment's hesitation, Nabiki sorrowfully   
arranged for separate places, as well as roommates to share costs, for   
each of them. She persuaded Twister to make some expensive looking   
artwork to sell. He complied with this logic, having an idea of what   
everything would cost in the end, and wishing for some cash himself.   
The results, when he applied himself, were astonishing. Twister had   
decided on oriental dragons and had gone to the library to look at pictures  
for some examples. He expanded on those by working on them in his mind  
and then making the finished product with a few hours work. Twister used his   
TK to polish the all-metal bodies so that they shimmered in the light. Making   
some of all sizes, colors, and poses, he gave them to Nabiki after signing   
them with a small image of a tornado underneath one foot. Everything about   
each dragon looked lifelike and had a fierce, restrained energy about them.   
Nabiki was surprised at how _good_ they were and actually complained  
a little to Twister about how hard it would be to sell them. He calmly replied,  
with a hint of a smirk showing, "Well, you _said_ to make them look expensive.  
Ask, and ye _shall_ receive." Sighing dramatically, Nabiki had shaken her head   
and smiled, "Good thing no one has likely ever seen things like these or   
we'd be accused of stealing."  
She took one of the smallest ones to an art dealer and asked him on  
a price. The dealer looked at the figurine very carefully and grew very   
excited over the exacting detail and aliveness the dragon displayed. Nabiki  
saw this and smiled when the dealer mentioned in a trying-hard-to-be-calm voice  
that he would be _very_ interested if she had more and _who_ had made the   
dragon. She had sorrowfully said that the artist wanted to remain anonymous and   
that the person had given her _quite_ a few dragons to sell for them. The   
dealer looked happy at the thought of the commission he would get and agreed   
to keep quiet about who had given him the dragons.  
One dragon was displayed in artistic circles and when it was said they  
would be auctioned off, many interested parties came to get what they could.  
Each dragon in the auction was bid upon for a long period of time, but the  
lucky parties who got them were not disappointed in the price. At the end,  
the result of the auction gave Nabiki and Twister, the dealer, and the   
auctioneer, quite enough for all their needs.  
However, there _was_ a dark side. After the auction, several attempts  
of robbery were attempted at the dealer's place, due to the fact that the   
dragons had been sold at a very nice price. Nabiki and Twister had expected   
that however, and were prepared. Twister had not gone to all that trouble with  
dragons to leave them to just Mind and he had extremely vivid images of them  
for use with Magic. Thusly, every attempt to steal the money met with the   
same result. Policemen found the thieves pale and shaking on the floor of the   
broken-in dealer's shop, whimpering, "Dragon! Don't let it get me! Dragon!   
Don't..." After this occurred three times, the superstitious thieves   
stopped trying to steal 'The Dragon's Hoard', as it was now called.  
Nabiki showed up eventually and the relieved dealer handed over the   
money, minus his commission. He made no comment about the mysterious   
dragon guardian.  
The soon-to-be college bound pair were delighted over the amount  
that the dragons had earned. Nabiki embraced Twister and kissed him for a very  
long time.

After separating, Twister commented, "Well! If it hadn't been   
that much trouble, we should do that more often."  
With glowing eyes, Nabiki looked at the amount of money before them,  
"It was certainly worth it."  
Twister sighed, "Unfortunately, we can't use too much right away."  
Nabiki looked disappointed, but nodded knowingly, "You're right. Two  
ordinary." She looked at Twister briefly, "Well, _one_ ordinary girl and one  
extra-ordinary...person," Twister smirked at her, "couldn't possibly make   
_this_ much money. People would think we're gangsters."  
"Yup. College will take a fair chunk of this away anyway since we're  
_both_ going to be using it." He smiled at Nabiki, "Of course, that doesn't  
mean that we can't splurge a bit once in a while."  
"Ranma and Akane have certainly been busy as well this summer,"   
Nabiki smirked.  
Shaking his head, Twister had to agree, "Those two and the others sure  
haven't settled things much have they? Shampoo, Kodachi, and Ukyou are  
still after Ranma, while Kunou and Ryouga still after Akane. Mousse just wants   
to remove Ranma out the picture to get Shampoo. What a mess." He glanced at   
Nabiki, "Hit me if that happens to me."  
Nabiki arched an eyebrow and mock-threateningly said, "It had _better_  
not."  
Twister laughed before asking Nabiki something else that he   
had been wondering about. "Who _did_ you set me up with? I've been so  
busy with other stuff that I never got the chance to ask."  
Smiling, Nabiki replied, "Well, since you decided to go into the  
realm of programming computers I found someone who was going into the same  
field. From what I've heard, he's in a wholly different world sometimes...which  
should be perfect for you. Also, from what you've said, I think he likes   
most of the things that you do too so you shouldn't have much of a problem."  
He chuckled, "Whoo! I would say...perfect! As are most things you do.  
I gather you found a match for yourself?" Twister shook his head. "Of course  
you did! Duh!"  
"Actually, she's not going into Business like I am. I think it was  
Engineering or something similar like that."  
Twister blinked. "Hm. Unusual. Well, we ain't in the stone age.   
Still...she must be a excellent student."  
Nabiki nodded, "Yes, I heard she's pretty good, but a little too  
...um...trusting sometimes."  
"Aha! That's how you got her to bunk with you! OW!" He said as Nabiki  
hit him in the side. "Kidding! Kidding!" Twister waved his hands in surrender  
to stave off further attacks.  
"You had better be," Nabiki mock growled then chuckled. "But you   
_are_ right. She's never heard of me and I don't think my reputation   
will increase very much now anyways."  
"With 'The Dragon's Hoard,' I should hope not," Twister chuckled.  
"You like that name, don't you." It was not a question.  
"A well deserved name that one was, from conception, protection, and  
denomination."  
Nabiki smiled beatifically, "True."  
"We'd better go home and get ready since we don't have a lot  
of time." He gallantly held out his arm to Nabiki and she accepted it   
with a smile.

They soon got ready to leave. Soun was crying, as usual, since one of   
his daughters was going to college. Nabiki was holed up with Akane and Kasumi,  
talking about writing home and other stuff. Twister was talking with  
Ranma while waiting for Nabiki to come down.  
"On the rooooaaad again..." Twister mock-sung out.  
Ranma grimaced at the voice, "Better work on your singing, Twister."  
"Critics! Always critics around me!"  
"More like realists, Twister." Nabiki called down from the top  
of the stairs where she was talking to her sisters.  
Twister sighed.  
Ranma was grinning, "Well, you'll likely have a fun time at college  
anyway."  
"Oh, joy. Homework again. I can't live without it." Twister dourly  
said, then a sinister gleam lit his eyes, "But soooon, it will be _your_ turn.  
Bwahahahahahah!" He cackled the last part.  
This fact caused Ranma to protest, "No, it won't!"  
Twister's eyebrow arched, "Oh, no? Well, despite the fact that you  
_can_ teach martial arts, and I will teleport in every once in a while to  
continue those lessons, I believe you lack some experience in _running_ a   
dojo. Of which, if you ever marry Akane in this lifetime, you _will_ be doing  
quite a bit of the work in doing so. Also, going might curb that bit of   
aggressive behavior you sometimes show."  
Ranma had been downcast at the sudden realization that he might   
_have_ to go to college, but when he heard that last he got a little   
angry. "WHO'S AGGRESSIVE!?" He shouted, fists balled.  
Glancing at Ranma's fists, Twister chuckled, "Point in fact."  
Deflating at that, Ranma grudgingly admitted, "All right. You _might_  
have a point."  
"Success! I hath broken though!" Twister cheered. "Just think you're  
punching Kunou in the face when you work on those 'dumb' dojo-related   
problems," Twister smirked. "Besides, you might lose a few 'girlfriends'   
if you go," Ranma brightened at that, "...or not." The lights dimmed.  
Ranma sourly said, "Thanks a lot."  
"All part of the service, my dear chap!" Twister saw Nabiki was finally  
coming down and he picked up their bags, "And now we must say farewell! So   
long! Till next time! When next we mee...urk!"  
Nabiki pulled Twister away from the house interrupting him. "I think  
a simple 'good-bye' will suffice, Twister." She commented while waving to her  
family.  
"But that's no fun! Heh. Kidding." He waved one last time before  
they both got in the cab they had called up and headed for the train   
station.

The pair reached the station on time and boarded the train with minutes  
to spare. After several hours of being on the train, while talking about what  
how college would be like, they arrived at their destination.   
They got their baggage and got into another cab.  
"We'll go to your place first, Twister, since it's closer." Nabiki   
looked a little excited.  
"Enjoying the new sights, are we?" Twister chuckled. "Ah, soon   
you shall know them well."  
"True. I wonder how badly I'll miss being home," Nabiki sighed a   
little.  
"Hey! That's no worry! Just call Twister Express!" He grinned.  
Nabiki smiled. "Right! I forgot. You _are_ handy at times."  
" 'At times' she says. Sheesh!" Twister rolled his eyes as Nabiki  
smirked.  
She looked out the window and commented, "I think we're almost there."  
"Hmm. I guess my new roommate will be there first." The cab stopped  
in front of a small apartment building. "Ding dong! This must be the place.  
Not bad. Fairly new building." He stepped out and retrieved his luggage.  
"You sure you'll be able to handle your stuff okay when you get to your   
place?"  
Nabiki grinned, "I'll get the cab driver to help me."  
*Heaven help him if he doesn't.* Twister thought amusedly.

Chapter Four  
\------------

After receiving instructions from the landlord on how to find the   
place and going there, Twister paused at the entrance to what would be   
his new home for a while. Finding that the door was open, he entered   
with a grand flourish.  
"What ho, new roommate! What be thy reaction to mine presence in our  
new abode?" Twister grinned as he looked around the apartment. *Nice place.*  
The person seated at a newly-installed computer system on a desk by  
the wall turned around with a surprised look. He wasn't bad looking with   
black hair, brown eyes, and for a computer user he actually looked fairly   
fit. Also, he was little shorter than Twister and looked friendly. At the   
moment he was wearing blue jeans along with a black T-shirt that had an   
Eastern-looking dragon on the back.  
Luckily, the apartment was already furnished. Or perhaps   
not...since Nabiki likely thought that Twister didn't want to look for such  
things yet. The desk and computer had to be his roommate's and was situated  
by the wall, to the left of the door, beside a TV and mini-stereo system  
that were also likely his. The apartment's furniture consisted of a   
couch against the wall opposite the TV and stereo, a padded chair just  
to the right of the door, and a small table with a set of chairs visible  
behind a divider to the kitchen. A bedroom door was right beside the couch  
while another was in the middle of the open hallway, opposite of the  
kitchen, with the bathroom being at the end of the hallway on the same wall.  
A window was visible on the far wall and the place likely had windows in  
the two bedrooms and bathroom for sunlight to fill the apartment.  
Nothing was on the walls and some empty grocery bags suggested that  
Twister's new roommate had already done some shopping to put something in  
the kitchen.  
"Well, that girl _told_ me 'I'd know him when he comes'." Twister's   
new roommate looked amused now.  
"Gah! She knows me too well." Twister sighed sorrowfully. "There goes  
my dramatic entrance. Ah, well. The name's Twister. And you?"  
"No last name?" Twister shrugged. "Hm. I'm Yasuro Fujita."  
Twister looked at the system Yasuro was sitting at. "Nice system.  
What is it? 386? 486?"  
"Nope!" Yasuro grinned, "New Pentium chip processor with 32 Megabytes  
RAM."  
Arching an eyebrow, Twister replied, "Yowzers. Power to burn. What  
the heck are you using it for?"  
Grinning sheepishly, Yasuro said, "Well...do you know Doom II?"  
Twister looked incredulous. "Ya! All you really need is a 386 with   
8 Meg for THAT game! Trying for virtual reality? Talk about overkill."  
Yasuro sighed. "True, but it's an addictive game and I wanted to see  
it on this system." He rubbed the back of his head. "It's...uh...sightly  
too fast right now." He looked up at Twister. "You bring a system?"  
"Nope. I may have to lease something soon though, unless you mind me  
using yours."  
"Not at all. Don't mind me sometimes though. I can get a little...um  
...absorbed in what I'm doing." He waved his hand. "Come on in. It's _your_  
place too." He pointed at the door beside the couch. "I took the other  
bedroom so that one's yours."  
"Thank yew." Twister lifted his stuff easily and walked in. He paused  
as he spied a rack of books on another wall. "Ah. Something else for me to   
drool over," he chuckled.  
Yasuro turned back from the computer to see what Twister was talking   
about. "Looking at my book collection? Go ahead and read them if you   
want. I've read them several times already." He turned back to face the   
computer again.  
"A man after my own heart." Twister happily said as he entered  
his new room.  
*Nice guy,* Yasuro thought to himself. *I guess I got a good choice  
of roommates from what I hear elsewhere. Sure is muscular for someone in  
computers though.* He wondered at the deep blue 'special' clothes Twister  
had been wearing. *Where did he get those clothes? Looked good, wherever he   
got it.*  
Someone knocked on the door that Twister had left open. Yasuro  
looked away from his computer again, and smiled at what he saw.   
Leaning casually on the door frame was a dark-haired, somewhat lean  
young man with a grin on his face. He too wore jeans, but wore a nice  
plaid shirt with a brown jacket worn overtop.   
"Discovered all the other perverts in this town yet, Morio?"   
"Hey! You may be a friend of mine, but that's getting a little rude!"  
Morio grinned, "Besides, I've only found half so far."  
Yasuro sighed wearily and gave it up as a bad job, "Well, try not to  
do _too_ much havoc here, ok?"  
"I'll keep it to a minimum...until I know the ropes around here."  
Twister poked his head around a door. "Bungee or jumping? Who may you  
be?"  
Morio looked at Twister, then Yasuro, "This is your roommate?"  
Yasuro nodded. "I like him already." He turned back to Twister. "Hi. My name's  
Morio, I'm a friend of your new buddy here and I also live down the hall  
with _my_ old buddy." He sighed. "If they allowed three people in a room here  
then _this_ fellow," Morio pointed at Yasuro, "would have been with us."  
Twister chuckled. "I guess I got very lucky."  
"Depends on what you call 'luck'," Morio grinned. "If you don't mind  
the 'stone sentinel' sitting here some of the time, then that's it.  
"Hey!" Yasuro looked a little indignant at the comment. "It's better  
than being banned from the pool because _someone_ poured a fabric dissolver  
into the filter system and waited outside with a camera."  
Morio made a face. "Yeah. That _did_ kinda give it away."  
Looking a little confused, Twister wondered out loud, "'Fabric   
dissolver'?"  
Yasuro sighed, "My friend here has a penchant for trying to   
obtain photographic momentos of private female body parts and articles   
containing them."  
"Oh, just _say_ it, Yasuro! I'm not ashamed of it." He grinned at   
Twister. "What your roommate is trying to say, and so delicately too, is   
that I'm a hentai, and proud of it because I do it in clever and sneaky   
ways. I don't go and be obvious about it, but I do it. With some   
sophistication as well." Morio looked at his watch. "Hmm... I have to run.   
I'll drop by occasionally. Places to go, people to see. Female preferably!"   
Morio walked out and closed the door behind him.  
"Hm. Now there's an...interesting personality." Twister mused.  
"Yes, he certainly is, but he's a nice guy usually. He only gets in  
trouble when he gets caught, which is rare." Yasuro sighed and looked at   
_his_ watch. "I have some things to do too. Settle in while I'm gone. I likely   
won't be back for hours." He turned off the system and got up. "I'll show you   
the computer later as I'm sure you'll be busy enough getting accustomed   
right now."  
"Roger, wilco. I'm sure that you're right that I'll be busy if   
I'm right and so on, and so on....," Twister grinned.  
Yasuro left smiling and shaking his head in amusement.  
As Twister watched the door close, he chuckled, *Hm. looks like things  
are going to be interesting around here. At least Morio doesn't look half as   
bad a hentai as Happousei.* He walked back to his new room. *Now...let's   
try to do some things thought out before we start here. Nabiki left _me_   
with the money from the dragons because I could better hide it even   
though she wanted to keep it around her.* He smiled at the thought. *Ah,   
well. Better find a place to put it and make a spell or two to guard   
it.* Twister spied a storage trunk in a corner of his room. *Perfect! I   
can put other things as well as clothes in there too. I'd better make a   
few more magical changeable clothes too, later, and make the styles   
different this time. The fact that both forms of _this_ pair look   
similar is _bad_ now that I think about it.*   
Twister thought about it for a moment and then nodded. *Good for   
now. Better get started...*

A few hours later, Yasuro returned. In no particular hurry he   
unlocked the door to the apartment now shared and opened it .  
The sudden movement he heard inside as he opened the door   
startled him. "Twister? You here?" He called out.  
No response, but he heard the bathroom door suddenly close.  
"Twister?" Getting a little concerned now, Yasuro cautiously went in  
the direction of the bathroom as he heard water running. He heard   
another sound behind the bathroom door as he reached his destination.   
He opened the door to the bathroom.  
What he saw confused him a bit. Twister was there, but his head was  
soaking wet and water was dripping down his clothes.   
Twister looked nervous. "Uh...hi. Um...sorry I didn't say anything."  
"What are you doing?" Yasuro said as he watched Twister shut off the  
hot water in the sink.  
"Ahhh...I was just going to try some...styling gel! Yeah, that's it!  
I've never used it before so I thought I'd give it a try. You need to get   
your hair wet first." He still appeared a little nervous to Yasuro's eyes.  
He let it drop. "Ok. I was just worried there for a minute. I thought  
someone had broken in."  
"Nope. Just me crashing around." Twister smiled now, relieved.  
Yasuro left to go back onto his computer. *What was he doing, I   
wonder? Never saw anything like _that_ before.* He shook his head. *I   
guess my new roommate had to have a _few_ quirks. Wait a minute!* Yasuro's   
eyes widened. *His clothes weren't even _wet_ and yet it looked as if he   
had just doused himself standing up. How did he do _that_?*   
His new roommate was starting to arouse his curiosity.

Twister let out a relieved sigh after Yasuro left.  
*Whoo! That was close! I don't know if I want him to know about me  
yet, or at all. I just met him and that's not enough time.* Twister dried his  
hair as he thought. *I needed to be female to do the spells, but I forgot all  
about Yasuro. Good thing I finished in time and heard him unlocking the   
door.*  
His stomach growled.  
*Oh, jeez. I can't believe I used _that_ much energy. Then again, I   
haven't eaten that much lately since making the dragons, and I _did_ use a   
fair bit of power to protect my stuff. Ah, well.* Twister walked towards   
the kitchen. *I wonder if Yasuro stocked up a reasonable larder?* Looking   
through the kitchen signaled the affirmative. *Yup. He's packed it   
full so I'll make up something to eat. Guess I'll shop next time. Ice   
cream, donuts, etc.... Yaright.* He chuckled and started making something  
for the both of them.   
*Hope he likes it...*

An hour later, Yasuro finally had his awareness diverted from the   
computer by a most delicious smell. *What the heck is Twister making?* He  
got up, stretched, and went towards the kitchen.  
What he saw amazed him.  
The table was all set with a full meal, ready to eat.  
"Ah, good! I guess I don't have to drag you from your computer."   
Twister grinned. "I figured, since you had stocked up the kitchen, that   
I might as well use it. I'll shop next time." He waved a hand at the   
table. "Sit! Dig in! I know _I_ am." Twister sat down and started getting   
stuff for himself.  
Stunned, Yasuro sat down and stared at the food. "This smells   
delicious! How did you know how to make it all? I smells like something my mom  
made once on a special occasion."  
Twister was still gathering his bounty. "Really? The place I stayed  
at always had something like this. The person _there_ was a great cook I'll  
tell you. I decided to watch her for a while and she didn't mind. I just   
happen to have a perfect memory so making what she did is a snap." He grinned.  
Getting out of his stunned state, Yasuro started to get his own food.  
"You have a perfect memory? Must be nice." He had to chuckle, "The other   
guys down the hall must be smelling this and wondering where it's coming   
from."  
Twister laughed at that. "We'll know they know where if they start  
knocking on the door."  
"You sure made a bunch though."  
"I need a _lot_ of food sometimes. I have a funny metabolism and it  
seems like I will never become truly full. Sometimes I don't need to eat at all.  
Depends if I exert myself." He shrugged.  
"Well, I'm all for it if you make stuff like..." Yasuro waved his   
hand at the food before them.  
Twister just chuckled and ate.

Chapter Five  
\------------

Twister woke up early, as usual, and started getting ready for   
college. From what he had heard from Nabiki, when she had phoned last night,  
freshmen had to get there early, or all the courses you wanted would be taken.  
He passed Yasuro's room in his preparations and saw him still asleep.  
He crept in, quietly viewed the unconscious figure for a moment, and   
then shouted, "Up and at 'em campers!"  
Yasuro's eyes went wide open and he sat up straight, yelling.  
"Yah!!!!"  
Twister chuckled, "Better get ready in a flash today. This _is_  
registration day you know."  
Normally calm Yasuro gave Twister the Evil Eye. "I _know_ that. But   
could you have woken me without _scaring_ me half to death!"  
Unrepentant, Twister smiled, "It seemed the fastest way. Better   
hurry!"  
Grumbling could be heard from Yasuro's room as Twister made a little  
something for breakfast. When he emerged, Yasuro saw the prepared food and  
the angry glare faded away.  
"Thanks. I guess we _should_ better go early."  
"That's the spirit! We can leave later on other days, but not   
this one."  
They finished Twister's little breakfast snack and left together. Snores  
could be heard from the room where Morio and his friend were.   
Yasuro chuckled. "This gets more appealing every minute."

When they arrived they were not the first in line, but they were   
pretty close. Twister looked for Nabiki, but she wasn't there yet.  
*Ah, well. She never _was_ an early riser.*  
Elsewhere, in a position that allowed someone to view the entire row  
of freshmen at once, someone was intently going over each person in the line.   
The someone was female, beautiful, raven-haired, and looked very mysterious.  
This person was a Professor Miyabi Kitamura and she was scanning for  
students for her 'special course' for 'gifted' students. Miyabi was a skilled  
sorceress and was always searching for new students to teach the mysteries  
and powers of magic.   
Whether they wanted to or not.  
*Hmmm. Looks like the usual crowd of freshmen. I probably won't find  
much more than one full class this year. Again.* She looked at the special  
mystic device she had created to search more accurately for prospective  
students and frowned. *Odd. That attractive young man over there indicates  
_very_ highly on my magic scanner, but I can sense _no_ mystic aura about   
him. Very strange indeed.* Miyabi peered closer at the student and spotted his  
clothing. *Now _that_ is definitely magical, but that is not enough to even   
come close to what my reading says. He must be cloaking his magical aura   
somehow. That means he must have _some_ knowledge of magic at least.* She   
smiled. *Better than none at all. I think he indeed qualifies.* She   
walked towards the registration desk as Twister came close to it. *Let's   
see how hard it will be to snag this one.*  
Miyabi waited until Twister came up to the desk and listened in. What  
she heard made her smile.  
*No high school diploma? Excellent test results though. Yes...this  
should be _very_ easy.* She stepped up to the desk and spoke up.  
"I think this young man deserves a place in _my_ class, gentlemen."  
She looked calmly at the suddenly nervous registration people at the desk.  
"I'm sure you can find a place for him there."  
"Uh...y-yes I t-think we can manage that." One of them stammered.  
Twister was sightly confused, Yasuro had gone first and was now gone,  
leaving him with no support. "Huh? This doesn't sound like normal   
registration." He looked at Miyabi. "Who are you?"  
She smiled gently, "I'm Prof. Miyabi Kitamura. I teach a special class  
for gifted students and your scores definitely fit into that category."  
Miyabi disturbed Twister for some reason, "Uh, thanks, but I'd rather  
just take the normal courses I selected, thank you."  
The smile just became deeper, "It's not an option...," she glanced at  
his forms, "Twister. I can prevent you from entering this college without  
a high school diploma and I don't think you want to do that."  
*Oh, great. An influential teacher wants _me_ in her class.* He   
sighed, "I guess I don't have much choice."  
"I thought you would say that." She purred.  
*Shades of Shampoo.* Twister glumly thought as he finished the  
registration with the 'special' course in place of another. He started  
walking away, but Miyabi caught his arm and pulled him to the side where no  
one could hear them.  
She looked a little more serious, but not by much, "I look forward to  
teaching someone with your mystic power." The shocked look Twister gave   
Miyabi confirmed her theory and she was pleased. "However, I will not   
allow the cloaking of your mystic aura in class, for you will need to   
demonstrate your progress from time to time." She smiled and started to   
walk away into the shadows. "See you there."  
Twister regained his senses and quickly tried to follow, but she was  
gone.  
*Oh, shock. Just great. I'm not _hiding_ it in this form! Gah!* He   
walked back to where the line was and waited for Nabiki. *Just what I   
needed to happen to me. I wonder if what Ranma has is contagious.*  
Twister sighed morosely.

When she finished her registration, Nabiki walked back down the line  
and spotted Twister, leaning on a wall, looking depressed.  
*What happened to him? He's usually too _cheerful_.* She started   
getting worried and walked up him. He looked up when she came near.  
"Ah, Nabiki. I carry a tale of woe indeed. May I share it with thee?"  
Twister sarcastically said.  
Wondering what was up, Nabiki nodded, "Sure, Twister. What   
happened? Didn't get a course?"  
He sighed. "Yes...and no. I got all the courses I wanted except   
one, because me and my roommate got here early. Unfortunately, when my roomie   
had left and I was finishing, some female professor came along and forced   
me to sign up for _her_ class. So now I have her class instead of the one I  
wanted."  
Nabiki frowned, "That's odd."  
"Wait. It gets better." Twister paused before continuing. "When I   
was done, she dragged me off to the side and said that I shouldn't mask   
my mystic aura in class since I would have to demonstrate my progress."   
He looked Nabiki in the eye. "I _think_ this is a class for teaching   
_magic_."  
Wide-eyed, Nabiki looked at Twister, "Does she know about your two  
forms?" She answered herself immediately. "No, of course not. She wouldn't   
have said it _that_ way then." Nabiki tapped a finger on her chin and   
sighed. "You've got a problem, Twister."  
"No kidding." He sighed as well. "I don't have a choice actually. I have  
to go or she'll drop me out of college. She also mentioned I had a 'powerful'  
aura. I don't think that will help my position in class either. _And_ I'll  
have to switch every time to go to it from my other classes as well."   
Twister shook his head. "I think I'm going to be busy tonight thinking   
on how to get this to work."  
"I don't envy you," Nabiki chuckled. "You'll find out more about   
magic anyway."  
"That thought does _not_ lighten my mind." He sighed again. "At least  
it's the last class of the day. Ah, well." He smiled at Nabiki. "How's your   
roommate?"  
The change of topic relieved Nabiki. "She's nice. She got me to wake  
up early, thankfully."  
"Ah, good. I was worried about that. OW!" He chuckled as he rubbed  
his shoulder that Nabiki had hit. "I had to wake up _my_ roommate too. He   
too was thankful...after he stopped cursing me that is." Twister grinned.  
Nabiki smiled and shook her head, "Come on. Let's get something to  
eat. It's almost lunch."  
"Ok. Let's go terrify an all-you-can-eat place. I found out yesterday   
that my energy reserves are low and I feel I'm going to need all the power  
I can get tomorrow."  
Hooking an arm through his, Nabiki led him on. "Then let's go. You  
can tell me what happens after classes." She smirked, "Especially  
that professor's expression when you first walk in."  
That made Twister chuckle.  
"Now _there's_ a cheering thought..."

Chapter Six  
\-----------

Miyabi was enjoying just looking at her new class the next day.  
*Almost a full room. It's been a good year.* She smiled. *Most of them  
even came willingly.* Then she frowned as she scanned the room with her   
eyes. *Where is that Twister boy? I didn't think he would miss this   
class after my little warning at the desk. Well, it's not class time yet   
so I can wait.*  
Her attention was soon captured by a female student walking towards  
her. *Funny, I don't recall 'inviting' this one.* The student was soon standing  
right in front of Miyabi, waiting.  
"Hello, Professor Miyabi."  
Miyabi frowned. "Who are you? I don't recall you being asked to   
be in this class."  
The red-haired student smiled broadly and spoke softly so only   
Miyabi could hear her, "Well, you did, and in this class could you call me   
Itazuka Tendo, please?"  
The magical professor looked confused. "_I_ invited you??"  
Twister continued, "You _did_ tell me to not 'cloak' my aura. I didn't  
have much choice about this." She chuckled at Miyabi's face and went to   
sit down by a friendly-looking girl.  
Miyabi was in a state of shock. *TWISTER???? How?? Why??* After a   
minute, she broke out of it and checked the red-headed student's aura. It was  
exactly as strong as she had thought Twister's to be. *That's impossible!  
How could Twister have done this?! He...she doesn't look that experienced.  
There _must_ be something more to this.*   
She forced the confusing thoughts out of her mind and began the class  
with one final thought.   
*I _will_ find the reason for this...*

*Well, _that_ made up a little for forcing me into this class,*   
Twister smirked inwardly.  
Miyabi started the class by stating that people did magic in different  
ways when they first started magic. One way may work for another, but not   
for someone else. The different ways included gestures, puzzles, rhymes, and   
others. After she that, she asked the class if anybody in the class had   
done magic successfully before.  
Twister's was the only hand up, which caused her a little   
embarrassment as the rest of the class looked curiously at her.  
With a large smile, Miyabi asked Twister what she had found out about  
magic and what she had all done.  
Reddening under everyone's view, Twister started.  
"Well, I found that my rhymes weren't the critical factor in a spell.  
Visualization of what you _want_ seems to be the most important part even   
though the rhyme has to be close to it. As well, you can choose how   
_much_ power to put into a spell when you cast it. Spells that you cast, unless  
it is to enchant an object, you can cancel mentally at any time. That's what  
I've found about magic so far."  
The professor was little surprised at how _much_, for a beginner,   
Twister knew. "Did someone teach you this?"  
"No. I figured it out on my own. There are still a few things I have  
trouble with though."  
After that surprising statement, Miyabi queried, "What spells have you  
successfully cast?"  
The length of time Twister thought about it intrigued her before Twister  
started the list. "I guess I'd better start in order. Um... Light,   
anti-scrying field, message spell, having weapons attack holder... Hm.   
Then I did a bunch. Flying belts, shockwave maces, powders bag,..."  
Miyabi held up her hand to stop Twister. "I think that's enough  
for now. How long did it take you to create these spells?"  
Twister shook her head, "A pretty long time. I goofed up on most   
when I first tried making them. I'm still trying to work out   
visualization. Only a few spells I've done came out right the first   
time...and that was because I had a vivid image to use."  
Now Miyabi smiled, "That is what this class will help you with. You  
are correct in that visualization is vital to a spell. The correct amount  
of strength is important as well or the spell will not work out as you expect."  
"My enchantments faded after a time. Is there a way to make a permanent  
magic object?"  
"Yes. There are ways to do that and some will be covered this year."  
Twister sighed gratefully. "Great. It's a pain to redo some things."  
The class continued from that point with no actual demonstrations  
given, but Miyabi promised that a student from the second year class would  
come to demonstrate. She hinted that 'Itazuka' might help as well since   
'Itazuka' already had experience casting spells.  
When class was dismissed, Twister left quickly, due to the fact that  
Miyabi was eyeing her strangely. She had just left the room when her shoulder  
was tapped on by someone's finger. Twister turned around to see who it was.  
It was the friendly-looking girl Twister had sat down beside in class.  
Her hair was... Well...Twister had known that some people in this universe  
had unusual hair colors. This girl was one of those because she had _blue_  
hair.  
It _did_ look very nice on her.  
She smiled, "Hi! My name's Yuriko."  
"Ah...hi. Mine's Itazuka."   
Yuriko looked a little excited, "So you've actually cast spells   
before? I didn't even realize _I_ could be able to until Prof. Miyabi told   
me yesterday."  
Twister smiled at the cute girl's energy, "Yes, I have. It's   
kinda fun unless you do it for something serious." Her face darkened as   
she remembered Malkon.  
"I came up to you because I was wondering if you could help me with  
my own stuff when I start trying out spells on my own." Yuriko smiled. "We  
could talk about it in study hall or in my place when my roommate is out.  
She goes out for long periods of time working on her 'future goals',"  
Yuriko giggled slightly for a second, "or to go with some guy she called   
'Twister'."   
Twister tried not to freeze at this. *Gah! I should've guessed this  
would happen. Of _course_ Nabiki's roommate would be in the same magic class  
and approach _me_. Ah well, she's Nabiki's roommate after all.* Out loud  
Twister said, "Sure. Once we figure out what _kind_ of magic you have it   
shouldn't be too hard to help you along, though I think we both could use   
help from class. Have you ever tried rhyme?"  
Yuriko shook her head, "Nope! I've haven't tried anything yet. I   
could try now..."  
"Whoa! Not here! Let's go somewhere private first."  
"Ok!"  
As the two left, a figure wrapped in a brown, monk-like robe slowly  
walked into the room where the class had been. It moved silently  
behind Miyabi and waited. When she turned around and saw the dark   
figure, she started. And then turned angry.  
"Takaya! I've told you _not_ to do that!"  
"Sorry, professor." The figure pulled back the hood to reveal a young  
man with sandy blond hair who was smiling slightly. "Habit, I suppose."  
"Habit my foot! You like doing that and that's that." She looked  
quizzically at her third year student. "Why are you here anyway?"  
"I'm just looking at the new students. Some look quite promising."  
She snorted. "For you that is. You always try to get too much power,   
Takaya."  
He chuckled softly. "One day I may even succeed." Takaya looked   
thoughtful. "Who was that red-haired one? She looked very strong for a first  
year student."  
Miyabi arched an eyebrow, "I wouldn't try _that_ one, young man.   
She's already cast spells before. Very talented that one is." *Unusual   
too,* she thought to herself.  
"Hmm. Maybe. Maybe not. I'll look around first before deciding what  
I will do." He bowed to Miyabi before exiting. As he left, he thought to   
himself, *The red-haired one has the strongest aura I've seen in this college!  
Including Miyabi! I _must_ find a way to get her cooperation, or her power.*  
He smiled widely before his hood covered his features again.

Twister and Yuriko found an empty classroom to quickly test Yuriko.   
She looked a little nervous, but Twister calmed her down.  
"Relax. All that's going to happen with this spell is a light and   
that's _if_ you can do rhyme magic. Ready?" Yuriko nodded. "Ok. Repeat   
this spell..." Twister spoke the rhyme she had read from a beginner's   
magic book and the young girl before her repeated it exactly.  
After she finished, Yuriko looked to the left and right and didn't  
see anything. Disappointed and sad, she looked at Twister. "I guess rhyme   
isn't my way after all."   
Chuckling, Twister said, "BUZZZ! Wrong! Try again for the correct  
answer." Seeing Yuriko's confused look, Twister smiled and pointed above  
the girl's head where Yuriko's eyes looked up at.  
Floating above Yuriko's head was a rose-colored ball of light.  
Her eyes widened and she broke out in a big smile as she shouted,"Yay!"   
Yuriko clapped her hands together happily.  
Laughing now, Twister asked her to will it out and she did so.  
"I guess rhyme _is_ your thing," Twister remarked.  
"Great! Then you _can_ help me with the class! I'm glad." Yuriko   
smiled happily. She then glanced at her watch. "I have another class soon   
so I'd better get going! I'll see you next time!" With that last statement   
she was out the door before Twister could manage a reply.  
Looking at the spot where the excited girl had last been, Twister  
arched an eyebrow, "Hmm. Now _there's_ a bundle of energy if I've ever seen   
one. Oh, well, nice to be needed anyway." Thinking of going home, she thought  
for a second, *I guess I don't need to do elaborate protections today and I   
don't feel like dunking myself _here_ right now. I'll go home, change, and   
take a nap, I think. It's been a busy day.*   
She sighed and started for her new home.

Yasuro had met up with Morio and his other friend Hito, who shared  
the other apartment with Morio, while Twister had been in Prof. Miyabi's  
class. Hito's brown hair was in the slight disarray it was always in as  
he walked with the other two. Right now they were walking back to their   
apartment building. Their current point of discussion was Twister's cooking.  
"So it was _your_ place that produced the smell that tortured us?"  
Morio said incredulously.  
"Yes. Twister surprised me by making something for both of us." Yasuro  
smiled at the looks he saw on the other two faces.  
"Man! You lucky stiff!" Hito exclaimed. "Having a roommate that can   
cook like that!"  
"Hmm. Looks like we'll have to visit occasionally, Hito." Morio smiled  
devilishly at his roommate.  
"You bet! Especially when _Twister_ cooks!"  
"If you two do, please tell us ahead of time. I don't think Twister  
would mind since he prepared enough for us _and_ you two as well that time."  
Yasuro shook his head. "He sure can eat a lot though."  
Morio chuckled, "With that kind of a body, I'm not surprised. If _I_  
looked that good, girls wouldn't mind me half as bad."  
"That reminds me. Are you done with my miniature electronic camera   
yet?" Hito queried.  
"Almost. Almost." Morio smiled.  
"I won't even ask _what_ you two are planning," Yasuro sighed.  
"Oh, it's not _that_ bad! Well...maybe so, but the results will..."  
Morio stopped as he looked towards their, now close by, apartment building  
entrance. "Now _who_ is _that_ delectable creature?" He breathed.  
Yasuro and Hito both looked away from Morio and saw what he was talking  
about. A very cute-looking redhead was standing in front of the apartment   
entrance and was almost in. The clothing she wore outlined her impressive  
figure nicely and the three boys looking at her were all staring at the  
sight. When she entered and disappeared out of sight, they snapped out of it  
and Morio led the rush to the door.  
As he frantically tried to open the door, Morio excitedly said, "I  
don't remember seeing her yesterday, but I believe I'll be seeing a lot more  
of her soon."  
"Oh, come on, Morio. You don't even know if she'll like you." Smiling  
now, Yasuro continued, "Most girls _don't_ after a while."  
"Details, Details! Even if she doesn't, I'll _still_ be seeing a lot  
more of her!" Morio grinned at Hito, "Still got all that spying equipment  
that I used last year?"  
"You bet! I wouldn't mind seeing pictures of _that_ one!" Hito grinned  
back at Morio as the latter finally got the door open.  
Yasuro just shook his head as he followed the other two into the   
building.  
They looked at the first floor hallways, but she wasn't there so they  
tried their second floor level. Morio caught a hint of red hair disappearing  
into a doorway before it closed.  
"There! She went into _that_ room," Morio cried.  
As they approached the door, they realized something.  
Yasuro frowned, "Hey! That's me and Twister's apartment. He must know  
the girl."  
"Good. Then I'll be able to find out more about her," Morio grinned  
broadly.  
They slowly approached the door and Yasuro open the locked door with  
his key. When they all quietly entered, there was no one in sight.  
Puzzled, they looked around, wondering where the girl had gone.  
Twister's voice called out from his room. "That you, Yasuro?"  
Grinning, Morio headed towards Twister's room, "And company!" He  
quickly opened the half-closed door and was confused. Twister was there all  
right, lying down on his bed and just relaxing. Alone.  
Twister looked puzzled, "What are you doing?"  
Hito walked up to Morio and shook his head. "Nobody else in the  
apartment," he confusedly said.  
"Was there anybody else in here just a few moments ago?" Morio  
demanded of Twister.  
Twister shook his head. "Nope. Just me. Why?"  
Yasuro commented from his computer, "We thought we saw some red-headed  
girl come in here a minute ago. Very strange. Morio was anxious to meet her."  
"Well, it's just me here." Twister confidently replied with a   
small smile on his face.  
Twister looked a little too amused for Morio's taste, but he let it   
lie. "Maybe I saw something else then. Come on, Hito." He left with the   
other hentai following him.  
When they were in their own apartment, Morio commented out loud,   
"I am _sure_ I saw _someone_ with red hair enter that apartment, and   
Twister looked like he knew something about it. Something funny is going   
on around here."  
"What should we do?"  
"We'll look around the college and see if that girl appears there. If  
so," he grinned, "we will try our best to catch her off-guard."  
Hito grinned with Morio.

*Whoo! That was close. I think I'd better be more careful from now  
on.* Twister thought as he lay on his bed. He called out to Yasuro, "How   
did your first day go? I got homework in almost every class."  
"You're lucky. I got homework in _every_ class." Yasuro sighed, "I   
wonder who that girl was..."  
"Got _me_. I wasn't with you." Twister replied a little nervously.  
"Whoever it was, she sure was cute. I don't think Morio will give up  
that easily now that he's seen her. _That_ is _fact_."  
Twister softly sighed, *Great. Another worry.* Shaking his head, he  
asked, "What _are_ those two going into anyway?"  
"Well, Morio is _very_ good with chemistry so he's doing that. Remember  
the pool incident I mentioned?" When he heard Twister's affirmative he went  
on, "Well, that's not the only time he's used chemicals to do stuff. Smoke  
bombs, acids, and other things to help him on his...um...quest." He heard  
Twister's snort and smiled. "Hito is into electronics in a big way. He lets  
Morio use most of the stuff he makes because it tests it pretty well. Another  
reason is that Morio lets Hito look at what he's managed to get with the  
equipment."  
"Deadly combination. Together those two must be a terror when they   
work on something."  
Yasuro chuckled, "They are indeed. I've helped them once in a while  
too when something required a computer on their little jaunts, but only   
because they are my friends. Perverts though they may be."  
*Great. The dynamic hentai duo.* Twister groaned softly. *_Just_ what  
I needed...*

Chapter Seven  
\-------------

Soon it was time for Prof. Miyabi's class again and Twister sat down  
by Yuriko. They talked a bit about how to practice magic at home before   
a stranger to the class came in.  
Prof. Miyabi stood up and introduced the stranger. "Class, this is  
the second year student who will be demonstrating a spell for us today. Her  
name is Natsumi."  
Natsumi was a beautiful girl with an attempted air of mystery  
about her. Twister saw that she wore quite a bit of make-up to try to   
enhance the Mystery Effect. Her clothes were shaded darkly and her skirt   
seemed made of a billowy satin-like material. She also had a superior air   
about her in addition to the one of mystery. Her long black hair was in the  
same style Miyabi used. This was most likely intentional.  
*So. This is the batch of new students.* Natsumi thought contemptuously.  
*I doubt any of them compare to _my_ level when I was in first year.* She  
didn't even bother to look at the class.  
Prof. Miyabi went on, "She will demonstrate an illusion spell  
and then we will compare it to one of Itazuka's to see the difference." She  
wasn't expecting Itazuka's spell to be very good so she wasn't worried.  
Natsumi watched as a red-headed girl stood up and came down to stand  
by the desk. *Hm. This one does look pretty cute, but she cannot compete   
with _me_. I come from a _long_ line of magic-users and this apparent   
newcomer will be no match.* She smiled nastily, *It should be amusing   
to see the soon-to-be obvious differences in the quality of our illusions.*  
Feeling the malice in Natsumi's smile, Twister and the rest of   
the class looked a little nervous.  
"Being a popular choice among people who use magic we shall try...   
dragons." Twister perked up a little at this though Miyabi didn't know why.  
"I realize this is a little difficult to try, but it certainly fits the  
subject. Natsumi, you may begin." She turned to the class. "Natsumi's way of  
magic is in her gestures. This is a hard form of magic, but she has mastered  
the art of gesturing."  
Making sinuous motions, Natsumi confidently started her illusion  
spell. A mist started forming in front of her and started shaping itself into  
a draconic form. Four legs appeared, then the body, and finally the head.  
Color started appearing on the image as it started losing its transparency.  
When Natsumi was done, a five foot high frozen image of a dragon was standing  
quietly in front of the class. It was a good likeness in Twister's eyes   
and the class applauded the result.  
Turning to Twister, Natsumi smiled wickedly, "Now... Let's see _your_  
little attempt at illusion."  
Twister fumed a bit at that remark, but held her temper, "I _do_ have  
an illusionary dragon spell, but I don't think I want to scare the class  
with it." The class whispered softly behind her as they wondered what Twister   
was doing.  
Raising an eyebrow before Prof. Miyabi could say anything, Natsumi  
laughed at Twister, "You think you can do better than _me_? I doubt _that_  
very much." She smiled mockingly.  
Hearing her patience TWANG in an almost audible snap, Twister chuckled  
a bit. "Alright, frosting-face. Don't say I didn't warn you." As Natsumi  
sputtered, Twister walked towards the chalkboard and got ready.  
She whispered the rhyme she had devised to protect the money from  
the auction while standing guard over it and used the same vivid picture  
for the spell. It had taken a while to get it right when making it, but once   
she had...  
Another mist formed from the ground, but this one did not create   
a dragon. Instead it climbed up the chalkboard and covered a fair portion   
of the wall. The class was wondering what Twister was doing as Prof.   
Miyabi looked on in curiosity and Natsumi in angry contempt. Mist parted   
in a circle at the middle of the cloudy covering and the gap slowly grew. It   
revealed a pitch black darkness that the eye could not penetrate. Being   
closer to the illusion, Prof. Miyabi and Natsumi were startled when   
they started smelling sulfur. Miyabi was about to ask Twister something   
when two glowing eyes opened in the darkness. These eyes were alive and   
held a fiercesome light which illuminated them from within. They looked   
hungry and slowly moved back and forth in the darkness as if looking at the   
tasty morsels seated beyond the darkness.   
Then they moved forward.  
As they approached the light of the class room, what the eyes were  
attached to revealed itself. A dragon's head came out of the darkness and the   
class gasped in their stunned silence. This was not the still image of a dragon  
like Natsumi had made, nor was it as small. It was twelve feet above the   
ground and barely fit into the classroom. The face was moving and   
animated as it focused on one person.  
Natsumi.   
Said person was slowly stepping back with a look of horror on her face   
as the rest of the dragon squeezed out of the hole in the mist. It was   
incredibly detailed and something more than just normal life seemed to   
radiate from the drake. A fierce energy was present in every movement.  
Natsumi was now backed up to the first desks and couldn't go back   
any further. Other students had rapidly left their desks and gone to the   
back of the room with haste. Most people saw the calm Prof. Miyabi and a  
grinning Twister and were calmed a bit. But the dragon inspired a terror  
all on its own. The dragon's head stopped within a meter of Natsumi and it  
filled her frightened eyes as it contemplated the little creature before it.  
Apparently deciding something, the dragon inhaled suddenly with a sound   
like a bellows. Natsumi had a sudden image of being toasted to a crisp.   
She was about to scream when the dragon stopped inhaling and spoke in a   
deep, ancient-sounding voice.  
"Gotcha!"   
With that said, the dragon turned into mist and was sucked back into  
the darkness of the hole from which it came. The misty curtain closed the   
opening and dissipated.  
Leaning on a wall, Twister calmly said, "Was _that_ good enough?"  
She smiled wickedly then.  
The class laughed as they realized the joke Twister had played on   
Natsumi and returned their seats, albeit with a few nervous looks at the   
chalkboard.  
Natsumi was still shaking from the scare the illusionary dragon had  
given her, but she had recovered enough to give a venom-filled glare towards  
Twister.  
Twister mentally slapped herself. *Dang. I shouldn't have done that.  
Now I have an enemy for life.* She sighed. *Why do I _do_ these things?  
Simple answer: she was begging for it.*  
"Ah..." Prof. Miyabi tried to recover her disrupted class. "Now  
you have seen the difference between a good illusion and," she glanced at  
an innocently looking Twister, "an extremely well done illusion. Not quite  
the way I had planned it, but you have seen the differences yourself and one  
day, hopefully, you too may be able to do that." She waved at the   
chalkboard. The class looked _much_ more excited now.  
*Well, that didn't go as I wanted it, but it seems to have got their  
interest all right.* Miyabi smiled slightly. *Natsumi needed to be taken down  
a bit anyway. I just hope Twister can handle her.* She looked at the blackboard.  
*Though from what I just saw, I don't think that will be a problem. I still  
want to know more about Twister though. There is more to that one than meets  
the eye.*

Natsumi angrily stormed out of the room and almost ran into a robed  
person who had been looking through the classroom window. She immediately  
recognized the individual and flushed.  
"Takaya! I didn't know you would be here!"  
Pulling off his hood, Takaya smiled at the girl, "Ah, Natsumi. I was  
just looking in and seeing how the first year class was coming along." He  
glanced at the door. "I see that one in particular is progressing   
remarkably well."  
Natsumi turned red with embarrassment as she realized that   
Takaya had likely seen the whole thing with the dragons.  
He continued thoughtfully, "Even _I_ would have a hard time making such  
a detailed illusion. Complete with illusionary smells and sounds too. Very  
impressive for a first year. Talented, I should say." Takaya stared at the  
door as he contemplated something.  
Realization dawned on Natsumi, *He's interested in her!   
In that...that...smug little _nobody_!* Her vision turned red with anger.   
*Not only does she publicly humiliate me, she does it in front of Takaya!   
I can _not_ let her go unpunished for this!* Seeing that he was still   
staring at the door, Natsumi angrily stamped away from the robed, young   
man. *We shall just _see_ who is the better magic-user and _that_ will   
show Takaya who to watch!*

When class ended, Twister and Yuriko walked out together, talking about  
the class.  
"That dragon you did was so _real_! How did you do it?"  
Twister shrugged, "I've done it before and I had a very good model of  
a dragon to look at. It took a little time, but you don't forget   
something like _that_ once you get it right," she chuckled.  
"Well, that other girl certainly deserved the scare you gave her,"  
Yuriko firmly said. "Looking down on all of us like that wasn't very nice."  
"True. I just hope she doesn't try to get revenge." Twister paused.  
"Strike that. I _know_ she'll try." Seeing Yuriko's concerned look, she smiled.  
"Don't worry. I'm ready if she tries anything."   
*I hope.*  
"Ah! The talented red-haired girl. Greetings." The two girls started  
and turned to face a person dressed in a monk-like robe. "Impressive display.  
I applaud your skill." Removing his hood, he smiled at them, "I am Takaya.  
I'm in the third-year class."  
"Um...hi." This person didn't exactly inspire trust in Twister. "The  
name is Itazuka and this is Yuriko." Yuriko smiled nervously.  
"Congratulations on such a well done spell. Not many would be able to  
accomplish such a display this soon."  
Twister was getting increasingly nervous at this smiling young   
magic-user, "Thanks, I've had practice."  
Suddenly, Yuriko shouted, "Oh, no! I forgot a book in the classroom!  
I'll be right back, Itazuka!" With that, she ran back to the classroom.  
"Good. Now we can talk alone." Takaya smiled a little more   
broadly.  
The truth dawned on Twister, *Oh, no. I think this guy wants to date   
me or something similar.* She stared back a little, "Talk about what?"  
"I was wondering if you had a boyfriend. If not, would you like to go  
out with me?"  
*Bingo.* Twister thought sourly before replying, "No, I don't have a  
boyfriend," *However, a girlfriend, yes...* "and no, I don't think I want to   
go out with you. No matter what."  
Unflustered, Takaya started a response, but Yuriko came back   
quickly, ran up to Twister, and started dragging the startled girl away   
while apologizing, "Nicetomeetyou! Gottarun! Bye! ComeonItazuka!" Unable to   
muster much of a resistance, Twister was soon helplessly dragged out of   
Takaya's sight.  
He smiled at the departing girls, *Well then, if she does not want to  
join me willingly then I shall have to find a way which will allow me to use  
her power _unwillingly_. So be it. I do not care to waste time on the   
apparently non-existent chance that she _may_ change her mind.*  
Takaya softly chuckled as he walked away.

Twister had recovered and was now trying to slow Yuriko down. "Whoa!   
Halt! Use the brakes already! What's going on?"  
After stopping, and panting with the effort of dragging Twister,   
Yuriko told her, "I...overheard...Prof. Miyabi talking...to herself. She   
was muttering something about...summoning a demon to find out something   
about a person called 'Twister'." She looked worried. "That sounds like   
my roommate's boyfriend. What should we do?"  
Looking grim, Twister calmed her down, "Don't worry, Yuriko. I'll   
take care of it. You'd better go to class." Seeing Yuriko's unconvinced face,  
Twister smiled. "Don't worry about it! Hurry, or you _will_ be late!"  
"Ok, Itazuka. Be careful!" She ran off.  
*Now why does Prof. Miyabi want to talk to a demon about me? Time for  
hot water and a little follow-the-leader to find out. Better activate that  
anti-scrying diamond I made earlier too. Made it just in case someone   
got curious about me. Good thing I did. I don't think that Natsumi will be   
idle for long.*   
Twister headed towards a hiding place she had found nearby.

Later that day, Miyabi was kneeling in a protective circle in a darkened  
portion of her home and quietly muttering a spell to summon a demon for her   
needs. She did this rarely and was being _very_ careful to get the correct  
spell completed.   
Finally, she was done and soon the expected blood-red flames flared  
in the Place of Arrival. The demon had come.  
It was ugly to look at with it's red hide and multi-fanged jaws but  
the sorceress ignored these facts and stated her question before the demon  
could respond.  
"By the power of your true name, I command you to tell me what I wish  
to know." She intoned.  
The demon looked like it wanted to tear her apart, but complied,   
"Yes, Mistress. What do you wish to know?"  
"Tell me about one known as 'Twister'." Miyabi asked the demon.  
She did not expect it's reaction.  
"TWISTER?! I cannot answer your question, Mistress," the demon   
actually appeared nervous, "but if you wish...another will take my place   
to answer that which I cannot. It is his punishment."  
Miyabi was startled, this had never happened before! However, she   
_did_ want to know about Twister. "Very well. Do so."  
The demon bowed and the flames reappeared. This time they burned for  
a long time before another form appeared. She stared at the individual.  
*This is a demon?* She wondered.  
The being before her bowed with a sigh. "Greetings, Lady. I am here  
to answer any questions you have about Twister. I am the arch-demon Malkon."  
As Miyabi paled at the thought of an arch-demon in her presence, a   
shout of anger startled her and appeared to cause the arch-demon considerable  
distress.  
"MALKON! YOU DAMNED ARCH-DEMON!" Twister came out of the shadows with  
his eyes glowing blue. An azure glow formed between his hands and a diamond   
sword came into being from within the light. Gripping the crystalline blade,   
Twister growled out, "Shall we continue where we left off?"  
Trapped in the containing wards, Malkon couldn't escape. "Ah, Twister.  
So nice to see you again. No hard feelings, I hope?" He smiled weakly.  
Twister narrowed his eyes and advanced upon the arch-demon.  
Recovering from the shock of the arch-demon appearing and Twister's  
display of power, Miyabi shouted, "HOLD IT! WHAT'S GOING ON HERE?" She looked  
at the now calming down Twister. "What are _you_ doing here?"  
Rage vanished to form embarrassment, "I heard you were going to ask  
a demon about me and I was curious as to what it would say. I did _not_  
expect," he glared at Malkon, "_this_ one to come."  
"_What_ is going on here?" Miyabi demanded again, crossly.  
Seeing that Twister was not going to take him apart, Malkon spoke up,  
"_That_ is why _I_ am here, I believe; to answer your questions   
with what I know." He chuckled at Twister's glare. "Oh, come now, Twister,   
you are a civilized being. Surely you have forgiven what I did by now."  
"Not by a _long_ shot," Twister muttered.  
"All right! That's enough! _You_," Miyabi pointed at Malkon. "Tell me  
just _what_ exactly is going on here," she commanded in a firm voice.  
Malkon sighed and shrugged at Twister, smiling, "Well, since I   
have no choice..."  
Twister threw up his hands in disgust and sat down while Malkon recalled   
everything that he had done to Twister. Twister didn't want the professor   
mad at him so he let Malkon recount the tale. That didn't mean he   
had to enjoy it though.  
Miyabi got her information all right, and a lot of it surprised her.  
She was amazed that Twister had survived the Event and a little shocked at  
the level of psionic power he had used on Malkon. The part about the cursed  
springs and the duo nature of Twister's power cleared up quite a few questions  
she had.   
"So _that's_ why you came as a girl." Miyabi commented.  
Twister blushed a bit.  
The capture of Twister and the magical items he had given his friends  
intrigued her. What really shocked her to the core, however, was Twister's  
destruction of the arch-demon's Overseer Master.  
"You did _what_!?! How did you do that?!"  
"Very painfully." Twister shrugged, "I didn't know I could do   
what I did till I tried myself. Besides, I had a tremendous headache and   
an aching body for a week! I'm _not_ doing that again unless I _really_   
have to, if ever."  
"Small comfort," Malkon sighed. "The other Overseers partly blamed me  
for my Master's death. That is why I find myself here."  
"Very well. You have answered my questions. I will send you back now."  
Miyabi prepared herself.  
"Oh, one more thing, Twister..." Malkon smiled broadly. "You _did_   
look _very_ nice in that gown." He chuckled at Twister's look of outrage   
as he disappeared.   
"Gah! I'll _get_ him for that someday!" Twister fumed at the now-empty  
place where Malkon had been.  
Miyabi stood up and stretched to relieve the cramps in her legs. "Well.  
That certainly answered my questions about you, Twister." She smiled.   
"Very interesting indeed. I have one or two things that you can help me with,  
once you get better at magic. I've left them for _far_ too long because I  
was unable to do them myself." She looked knowingly at Twister as she continued.  
"But now that I have an excellent _protege_, I think that they should be  
possible to accomplish now..."  
"Protege?" Twister sighed wearily.   
*Oh, boy...*

Walking over to Nabiki's place, Twister mulled over recent events.  
*Oh, well. At least she isn't power hungry like Malkon. Hmp. I wonder  
what those 'one or two projects' were that she mentioned.* He sighed. *I  
have a feeling I might not like it when she tells me.*  
When he reached Nabiki's apartment building, he punched her room  
code on the intercom and waited.  
The speaker buzzed with Nabiki's voice. "Yes? Who is it?"  
"Avon calling! Did you want the gold or the money colored lipstick?"  
He heard Nabiki's chuckle and a female giggle in the background. "Come  
on up, Twister." The door buzzed and he entered the building.  
Knocking on the door resulted in Nabiki quickly opening it and kissing  
him, which surprised him a little.  
After recovering from the kiss, he smiled. "What was _that_ for? Not  
that I mind..."  
"I haven't seen much of you since I've been busy getting used to the  
routine around here." Nabiki arched an eyebrow as she smiled. "I missed you  
a little."  
"A little? I'm crushed. My heart hath been broken by my fair lady's  
sad words of despair," he sighed dramatically.  
A person came near the door and giggled, "You must be Twister. Nabiki's  
told me a little about you." Yuriko said.  
"I deny everything she said!" He paused. "Even if it likely _is_ true."  
Twister chuckled. "And who may you be?" He snorted mentally, *As if I   
didn't know.*  
"I'm Yuriko." she said smiling.  
"Ah! The roommate who is going into Engineering. Good luck to you."  
"Thanks! I'm also thinking of something else at the moment though.  
It looks pretty exciting." She enthused as she went on, "I have a new friend  
in that class who promised to help me even. Have you met her? Her name is  
Itazuka." Nabiki stiffened at that last statement.  
"Ah...yes. I know her. I haven't seen her for a while though." Twister  
tried not to look nervous.  
"Oh, good!" Yuriko clapped her hands together happily.  
Nabiki started to pull Twister outside, "You haven't taken me  
out yet, Twister. Shall we do so _now_?" She stressed the last word.  
"Huh? Oh! Sure! Nice meeting you, Yuriko!" He called out as Nabiki  
led him outside.  
"Bye!" Yuriko called out happily.  
When they were walking outside, Nabiki stopped and faced Twister, "All  
right. _What's_ going on here?" She didn't look too pleased.  
Twister wasn't feeling very hot either, "Um..." He sighed and started  
explanations, "Since I was the only one in the class who had cast a spell   
before Yuriko asked me if I could help her. She said something that told   
me _you_ were her roommate so I said yes." He chuckled, "Luckily we found   
out that _she_ can do rhyme magic as well. Helping her will be a _lot_   
easier. Besides," Twister continued as Nabiki looked mollified, "She   
helped _me_ today by overhearing the professor muttering about asking   
demons for information about me and I went to see what went on."  
Concerned now, Nabiki queried, "What happened?"  
"Prof. Miyabi eventually got my _dear_ friend Malkon," He growled.  
"Apparently the other Overseers gave him the punishment of having to personally  
answer anything concerning _me_. Prof. Miyabi barely stopped me from taking him  
apart then and there."  
"So she knows about you now?"  
"Yup, and now she wants me to be her protege apparently." Gloomily,  
he muttered, "Joy and rapture."  
"Well, she was _bound_ to find out sooner or later." Nabiki sighed,  
"Being a teacher of _magic_, she was going to anyway. It's not like she  
wants to kill you or anything." She chuckled.   
"Um. True. Someone _else_ will be trying that."  
Nabiki stared at Twister, who wasn't looking at her, "What _else_   
happened today?"  
Twister related how he had scared Natsumi and also the brief meeting  
with Takaya.  
She shook her head, "You're getting as bad as Ranma." She chuckled,  
"At least you're not having to worry about fiancees." She arched an eyebrow   
at him, "You'd _better_ not anyway."  
Trying to forget the day's events, Twister went off topic, "Did you  
want to visit your family this weekend? I wouldn't mind seeing familiar faces  
and getting another lesson with Ranma."  
"Sure thing!" Nabiki smiled, "Cuts down on traveling costs and I   
might as well do so now before my workload increases."  
Grinning, Twister added, "And _this_ time I send a note ahead of   
our arrival..."  
They both laughed together then.

The figure hidden in the shadows of the night watched the pair walking  
back towards the apartment building. A voice whispered softly to itself in the  
silence.   
"Yessss. Sshe will make a fine addition to the other Chossen oness."  
A slightly hissing chuckle emerged from the hooded cloak the figure  
wore before the being vanished.

Chapter Eight  
\-------------

The last day of the first week finally arrived and Twister was feeling  
cheerful as he walked down the hall.  
*Ah. Just peace today. I can handle that.* Twister was whistling as  
he entered his apartment. Inside he saw something, however, that   
puzzled him.  
Yasuro, Morio, and Hito were sitting on the floor, looking very   
gloomy.  
"What's with you guys?" Twister queried.  
Yasuro looked at Twister and sighed, "These two, along with a   
couple of other friends that we know, made a bet with another group of   
guys who are all going into physical education."  
"Huh? What kind of bet did you make? It had to have been something  
you were sure about for you to have done it in the _first_ place. So _why_ do  
you look so depressed?"   
Sighing, Morio spoke up, "We _were_ sure, until we saw _their_ champion  
eating." Twister didn't look enlightened so Morio explained. "It's an eating  
contest basically. Whoever loses has to do whatever the other team wants  
tomorrow. We have someone on our team who eats a _lot_, but when he saw the  
other guy eat at lunch today..." Morio shook his head. "He doesn't think he  
has a chance after he saw that. And I'm inclined to agree. The amount of food  
that guy ate was unbelievable! That was just his _lunch_ too!"  
"What's he do?" Twister was a little amused.  
"He's a sprinter, and skinnier than you." The surprised look  
Morio received made him nod. "Yes. He doesn't look it, and that's what got us  
into this trap. I heard later that this group has done this before. They won  
easily. Apparently, this guy is _really_ hyper-active and has a super-fast  
metabolism. He eats an enormous amount of food every day. It's a good thing  
his family is well-off or he'd starve." Morio sighed. "It does not look good."  
Chuckling softly, Yasuro said, "This guy almost sounds like _you_,  
Twister."   
Morio froze when he heard that.   
Turning to Twister, Morio warmly smiled, "How much _can_ you eat?"  
Twister shrugged, "Um... I really don't know. I've never _been_   
full before. Believe me, there are quite a few all-you-can-eat places that have   
regretted that fact. Why?"  
The other three on the floor all smiled broadly.

An hour later, Twister was sitting in front of a large table waiting  
for the other person in the eat-off.  
*Great. If I become full then I won't be able to take Nabiki to   
Ranma and the others because I'll be stuck doing whatever the other team   
wants my team to do. How did I get talked into this?* He sighed. *Well,  
if I _do_ win then I'll likely have energy to burn. It's a good thing I think  
my power is low right now.* Twister stopped to consider the challenger who  
just walked in.  
The others just knew him by the name 'Legs' and he certainly looked  
like a runner. His frame had _no_ excess fat on it and his strong-looking  
leg muscles showed outstandingly as he wore running shorts. 'Legs' moved  
constantly and rapidly. Face animated and had both arms waving as he   
conferred with the rival group. Soon, he came over to sit opposite Twister.  
Legs smirked at Twister, "So you're my rival? You certainly don't look   
like it." His hands twitched rapidly on the table and Twister could   
hear his feet constantly tapping on the floor.  
Twister raised an eyebrow at the comment, "I'd get a mirror before   
you say _that_ again."   
"Very true." Legs smiled confidently as he waved his hand, "Let's   
begin. The first to quit loses. Enjoy your future stomach ache."  
Twister just smiled.  
Equal portions of noodles were placed in front of both eaters. They were  
replaced only after both had finished. Legs ate at a comfortable rate for  
a few minutes, but after he saw Twister matching him he sped up the pace.   
Realizing that finishing first gave more time to digest, Twister matched him  
every time Legs increased his eating so that they both finished their  
portions at the same time. They waited a minute for the next serving and  
continued like this for some time.  
Those cheering the eaters slowly stopped doing so and just stared  
after a while. The eater's hands were blurring with their speed and they  
were still increasing the pace. Legs finally decided to stop accelerating,  
since Twister seemed able to keep up, and settled for just out-lasting  
his rival.  
This went on for an hour.  
Both had consumed vast quantities of noodles and both were finally  
starting to show signs of slowing down at last. Legs was forcing food into  
his mouth while Twister looked nauseous.  
When they had finished their current portion, Legs spoke up. "You...  
eat...very...well." He gasped from exertion.  
Twister wasn't very tired because of the energy he kept getting from  
the food, but he was gasping too. "Not...bad...yourself. Will...thou...  
admit... defeat?"  
"Only...when...I...drop!" Legs looked determined, "I...have...never...  
lost...and I...do not..plan to...start now!"  
Twister sighed and they started eating again. After another half hour,  
Legs' prediction came true and he fell face first into his noodles. Twister's  
group cheered while the other looked stunned.  
Morio whooped and pounded Twister's back. "Yes! You did it!"  
Looking at Twister's face, Yasuro looked worried, "Did you eat   
too much, Twister? You don't look so good."  
Trying not to throw up, Twister commented, "No, I don't even feel like  
I'm getting full yet."  
This stopped Morio's cheering when he heard that. "What's wrong   
then?"  
Glaring at the two, Twister groggily got out, "_You_ eat nothing but  
noodles for an hour and a half and see how _you_ feel! Gah! I need to lay  
down somewhere." He groaned. "I don't want to see a noodle for a _long_ time."  
Morio, Yasuro, and Hito looked incredulous.   
Yasuro looked more closely at Twister. "Hm. You _do_ look like you've  
gained a bit of weight. You have one funny body, Twister, but then again, so  
did that Legs guy." He shook his head.  
"At least I won't have to eat too much for a while." Twister weakly  
grinned. "You guys enjoy the fruits of my labour tomorrow. I'll be going   
somewhere else with Nabiki." He got up, recovering from the noodles. "I'm   
going to bed." Twister started walking away.  
Hito rubbed the back of his head, "Now _that_ is one weird guy.   
_Nice_, but weird."  
Twister exited through a door into an empty hallway beyond. The others  
were startled to hear a large BOOM! on the other side of the door. Hito   
rushed to open the door to see what had happened, but saw nothing in the   
hallway at all. There wasn't a sign of Twister. Morio and Yasuro looked   
out with him.  
"What was _that_ and where did Twister go?" Hito was puzzled.  
Morio just shook his head. "I don't think I wanna know." He smiled then  
and turned towards the other group, dragging Hito with him. "Right now we have  
more enjoyable things to decide on... Like what we will do tomorrow with  
the losers." He grinned as Hito lost all interest in the hallway and looked  
eager at the idea.  
Yasuro stayed by the door and watched the hallway silently as he  
thought, *Wet hair sometimes, perfect memory, strange metabolism, disappearing  
red-headed females, and now _this_.* He pondered these facts about his   
roommate. *Just _what_ exactly _are_ you, Twister?*

Opening his eyes the next morning, Twister checked the time.  
*Gah! An hour earlier than usual! Must be all those noodles I ate  
yesterday.* He felt vaguely nauseous as he remembered. *I won't be able to  
eat...no, make that _look_ at another noodle for a while. Maybe making  
breakfast will shake that thought out of my mind. Then I'll go to Nabiki's  
and 'depart' back to the dojo. Be nice to see them all again.* Twister   
smiled.  
An hour later, Yasuro was lured from sleep by Twister's cooking and  
joined him for breakfast. When Yasuro smiled and queried, "What? No noodles?"  
Twister almost hit him with something large and heavy. After eating, left   
saying that he likely would be back that night.  
After picking up Nabiki, they walked to an out-of-the-way spot and  
he sent a letter ahead of them. Five minutes later, and checking that no one   
saw them, Twister teleported them both. With a BOOM they appeared in the   
dojo. Akane and Kasumi rushed up to Nabiki and hugged her.  
"Nabiki!" Kasumi smiled happily, "How is college so far?"  
"'Sokay right now." Nabiki smiled back.   
"Has Kunou done anything yet there?" Akane queried.  
Twister started. "Gah! Right! I haven't seen or heard of him yet."  
"He's in some of _my_ classes Twister. He's going into Business,   
too."  
Walking in, Ranma smiled with great pleasure, "At least he's not   
_here_. I don't have to fight him every second day anymore or put up with   
'Oh, my pig-tailed goddess'."  
Chuckling, Twister agreed, "Too true. Shall we have another lesson   
while I'm here?"  
Ranma snorted, "At the rate _you're_ learning, you'll have to go to  
Cologne to keep advancing."  
Twister mused about that thought, then shrugged, "Well, I'm not _that_  
good yet." He grinned. "Shall we start sparring then? Since you seem to hold  
me in such high regard..."  
"Okay..." Ranma chuckled, "But you'd better get ready to be beaten."  
"No problem..."

CRASH!  
"Owch! _Big_ problem!" cried out Twister as she hit the wall, limbs  
spread out. She peeled herself from the deep dent in the wall and considered   
the new depression while rubbing her back. *No _way_ is my body close to what   
I _used_ to think was normal. I should be pizza, but then, this happens to   
Ranma all the time.*  
"You ok, Twister?" Ranma-chan was smiling slightly while in a   
fighting pose.  
"Takes a lickin' and keeps on tickin'." Twister responded. "And you  
were worried about _me_ catching up with _you_?"  
Ranma-chan chuckled, "You _are_ pretty good now. Maybe around Akane's   
level, but I'm guessing there since I've never really fought her without   
holding back a fair bit. The fact that I know you're just a guy, like me,   
frees me of that."  
"Hm. I didn't realize I was _that_ far ahead. Also, the fact that I  
can Heal myself probably makes things easier on you as well." Twister chuckled  
while starting to get back into position.  
"That's true. Hm?" Ranma-chan was curious after looking a little   
closer at her student, "You gain some weight, Twister? You certainly look   
like it."  
"Gah. Some of the guys I've gotten to know in my apartment building  
got me to be their champion for an eating contest. My rival was appetite  
incarnate. I won, but we ate for an hour and a half before that happened.  
Gave me energy to burn though. I'm going to see if I can do something special  
with all of it."  
Incredulous, Ranma-chan stared at Twister, "An _hour and a half_??"  
She whistled softly, "Whoa. I knew you could eat a _lot_, but...," she shook   
her head.  
Twister grinned, "I have great ways of burning it off." She   
inhaled and got into position again, "Ready to go again, partner."  
Smiling, Ranma-chan attacked as Twister tried to defend herself.

A half-hour later, they called it quits. Twister was sore all over  
and Ranma-chan was sweating a little.  
"Uhhh... This reminds me of when I was bedridden for a week." Twister  
shook her head and looked around. "I think we trashed the place a little  
much though."  
Holes and large dents covered the walls of the training room. Debris  
littered the floor where the two had accidentally demolished some of the few  
objects in the room.  
Ranma-chan finally took a good look at the room, "Uh, oh. I think  
we might have trained a bit too hard."  
Looking thoughtful, Twister muttered out loud, "Hm. I don't think I've  
tried this before." She smiled. "No time like the present."  
"What are you talking about?" Ranma-chan absently said as she   
contemplated the damage. *Mr. Tendo is _not_ going to like this.*  
Ignoring the question, Twister thought of a quick rhyme and tried  
to visualize the room as it had been _before_ they demolished it. After a   
minute, she spoke the spell.  
"Room once whole that now lies wrecked,  
Time to have the damage checked,  
Wood now mend and stone be one,  
For cleaning up is so much fun."  
A soft purple glow illuminated the damaged parts of the room and a  
funny thing happened before Ranma-chan's startled eyes. Like reversed   
explosions, the debris in the room flew towards the walls and objects where  
they had originated from. The jigsaw puzzle of the pieces slowly joined up  
together and filled in the holes in the walls. The bent pieces straightened  
out. Soon, everything was reconnected seamlessly together and the training  
room was as undamaged as when they had entered it.  
Rubbing her hands together, Twister chuckled, "Well, I guess _that_  
worked pretty well."  
"Now _that's_ handy," Ranma-chan told Twister as she viewed the  
now whole room in relief.   
"Twister the fixer-upper, that's me! I'm surprised I didn't think of  
doing something like this before. Saves on repair bills anyway."  
Akane walked in dressed in a practice gi herself and saw the two   
standing in the middle of the room. "You finished?" She looked around the   
dojo. "Doesn't look like you practiced very hard, considering it's _you_,   
Ranma."  
"Yeah? Well, _some_ people are more skilled than others, Akane."   
Ranma-chan stuck her tongue out at Akane.  
Now looking angry, Akane heatedly replied, "Are you implying that I'm  
_clumsy_?!"   
Ignoring Twister's warning glance, Ranma-chan smirked, "Of course not.  
Just that a tomboy like you breaks things easily, that's all."  
"Ranma no baka!" Akane punched Ranma-chan through the roof and   
the latter flew off into the distance.  
Twister sighed as she looked at the new hole, "So much for my repair   
spell."  
"Repair spell?" An angry light dawned in Akane's eyes, "So you two  
_did_ damage the room! Ooooh! That Ranma!"  
"You should have seen it before. Holes everywhere. Ranma _is_ very good  
and he sure showed it." Twister looked inquiringly at Akane, "Ranma mentioned  
that I was about as good as _you_ now, Akane. Do _you_ think so?"  
"Really?" Akane calmed down a bit and smiled, "Do _you_ want to try  
me on?"  
Thinking about it, Twister nodded, "Sure, I guess. I'm still   
sore, but I think I can manage." She walked over to the center of the   
room and assumed a fighting pose and grinned. "Be warned, however. Unlike   
Ranma, I believe a far bit more in equality of the sexes. More so since I'm   
both now."  
Akane mirrored her and smiled, "That's fine with me..."

When Ranma-chan finally came back a half-hour later, she spotted the   
two who had been left in the training room. Akane looked tired and a little  
wobbily, but satisfied. Twister, on the other hand, was lying down on the   
floor, looking very much like she was going to regret it if she moved at   
all.   
Ranma-chan shook her head at the sight, "Don't you two think you   
pushed it a little too long? I knew Akane was stubborn Twister, but you   
too? And after _our_ session?" Ranma-chan smirked.  
Twister wearily raised her head off the floor. "Well...after your   
comment before...we decided to test it." Twister paused, "I think...you were   
right." Her head dropped back to the floor as Twister got ready to stand  
again.  
"That...was a...good match." Akane panted as she watched   
Twister slowly, and painfully, get up. She smiled. "Thank you, Twister."  
"You're welcome and thank _you_. I guess I shouldn't have done   
that. Ow. But I'll soon be better. Whoo! Hot water time. I've got bruises   
on top of bruises now. Good thing I can Heal or I'd be moaning about this   
for the next few days."  
Seeing Akane waver a little, Ranma-chan looked a little concerned,   
"You okay, Akane? Not that I'm worried or anything." She hastily added.  
Akane sighed, "I'm fine, Ranma. I just need to take a bath now." She  
quickly smiled at Ranma-chan, "Thanks for asking though."  
Embarrassed, Ranma-chan rubbed the back of her head, "Uh...sure. No   
problem." She was silent as she watched Akane leaving.  
Twister came up to Ranma-chan and smiled, "Sooooo... How goes   
_your_ love life?"  
"What?! Twister!"  
Twister just chuckled as she painfully walked away to get some hot   
water, leaving a flustered Ranma-chan behind.

Chapter Nine  
\------------

Soon, lunch came and went. Twister went to Ukyou's for a quick visit  
when he was done. After being happily greeted by Ukyou, they chatted for a   
while with Twister eating occasionally. When he finally noticed the time,   
Twister said good-bye to Ukyou and returned to the dojo. Before dinner, he   
cornered Ranma and talked to him about what to do for college when, or if, he   
went to college next year. Ranma did not look too thrilled with the idea.  
Nabiki had spent most of the day talking with her sisters and was  
looking content when they got ready to go after dinner.  
"Come back soon." Kasumi smiled as Twister and Nabiki got ready to  
leave.  
Nabiki smirked and pointed a thumb at her traveling companion.   
"With _this_ big lug? No problem."  
"I'll definitely be back next weekend for another lesson, Ranma."  
smiled Twister.  
"No problem. Keeps me in shape."   
"Thanks." Looking around, Twister continued with a chuckle. "Hi   
ho, hi ho, it's time to go you know?" Twister waved at the gathered   
Tendo and Saotome clans.  
They waved back as the duo disappeared with the usual BOOM.  
When they reappeared at the spot where they had vacated that morning,  
Twister quickly looked around. "I'd better find a few good places to   
teleport safely. Don't want anyone to notice my comings or goings."  
Nabiki nodded, "Good idea." She hooked her arm around his and smiled.   
"Walk me home?"   
"But of course, my lady."   
They walked back to Nabiki's apartment in comfortable silence. When  
Nabiki separated from Twister to enter the building, she stopped and quickly  
turned around, scanning the street nervously.  
Twister was worried, "What's wrong?" He looked where Nabiki was looking  
with both his eyes and his still untrained psionic senses. Nothing.  
Nabiki shivered, "I had the oddest feeling that someone   
unfriendly was looking at me. Weird. Oh, well." She shrugged it off and   
smiled at Twister. "Taking me home was nice, Twister. Thank you."  
Twister bowed to hide his blushing face, "My pleasure, my lady. Till   
next time." He stood up and smiled.  
Nabiki waved and entered the building. Sighing happily, Twister started  
home. *Well, I have homework to finish tomorrow and time to complete my   
protections from magic. It _was_ nice to go back for a while.* Pondering  
something, Twister nodded to himself, *Since she's declared I'm to be her  
protege, I think I'll query Prof. Miyabi with a couple of magic questions.  
Most predominantly, the question of Time between universes. I hope I like the  
answer...* Twister kept thinking about what to say while walking away.  
He didn't notice the dark, patient, and cloaked form that reappeared   
to continue watching Nabiki's building.

Sunday passed by quickly and Twister was able to complete both his  
homework as well as a few other assorted minor magical goodies. He didn't   
want to make much more until he found out how to make the enchantments   
permanent.   
When Yasuro came in, with a laughing Morio and Hito, late at   
night, Twister asked them what was so funny. Yasuro just shook his head   
and replied that Twister didn't really _want_ to know. Morio and Hito   
cracked up again and left while snickering apologies to him. The   
latter was baffled and decided that Yasuro was right. Anything that _those_   
two thought _that_ funny he didn't think he wanted to know either.

When the next magic class came, and back in female form, Twister gave   
one of the magical items to Yuriko. It was a diamond crystal hanging on a   
medium sized chain.  
She was happy with the gift, but puzzled, "What sort of crystal   
is this? Is it magical?"  
"Uh..." Twister didn't want to explain the diamond so she skipped the   
first question. "Yes, it's magic, but the enchantment will only last about a   
month, I think." Twister sighed. "Since Natsumi probably knows I'm friends   
with you she may try something so I put some things in the necklace to help   
hide you if she does anything. No one will see it when you wear it."  
Yuriko smiled happily and thanked Twister, "Oh! Before I forget! Could  
you come over to my place and help me a little in starting to cast spells after  
I finish today? Apparently my roommate has some business to attend to tonight   
so it should be okay."  
"Um...sure. I want to ask the Professor some things anyway. I'll   
come over around five. That okay?"  
"Great!" She enthused as the class began.  
Prof. Miyabi had given out a bunch of different spells last class to  
get the students to find out their own forms of magic over the weekend. She  
was now calling out each person's name to find out which kind of magic each  
student could use. She understandably didn't call out Twister's name for   
obvious reasons. There were a few of every type and the ones who could do  
rhyme spells were starting to look at Twister. Seeing what she had done in  
the last class made them feel pretty confident while the others were   
still a little uncertain. This was changed by Prof. Miyabi saying that it  
was the caster's imagination that truly made the difference in the quality  
in spells. Not the way it was cast. That evened out the uncertainty in the  
class.   
This had taken up most of the class so not much was discussed that  
day. When class was dismissed, Twister came up to ask the professor a few  
questions of her own.  
Prof. Miyabi looked up when Twister approached her and smiled, "Ah,  
Tw...er...Itazuka. Did you want to ask something?"  
"Yes, I do have a few questions to ask. Do you mind?" Twister stood  
by the room's desk, looking a little determined.  
"But of course, if it helps my new protege. What do you want to know  
first?" Miyabi smiled and got ready for Twister's questions.  
"You know where I come from." Miyabi nodded. "How is Time   
affected between universes? Is it constant? Varied? I need to know."  
Looking understanding, the professor answered with reassurance, "Time  
between two universes is only constant when they have a link between them.  
When they do not, one can leave one universe to another and return at almost  
the exact same time they left. I don't think you have to worry about links  
between your home universe and this one. You could return just after you  
left." She smiled. "You have plenty of time." Miyabi didn't mention that  
it took most magic-users decades to centuries to even _look_ at another   
universe. But with Twister she wasn't sure; the Event might have attuned  
Twister to forces that made universe-crossing much easier. It was best  
not to feed negative advice in any case.  
Sighing with relief, Twister continued, "Great! That takes a load   
off my mind. I can't return like this for a while anyway." She took a breath and  
went on, "The other question is: how you make a magical enchantment on an item  
permanent?"  
Thinking a bit on this one Prof. Miyabi finally replied. "Well, many  
things can make an item permanently magical. One is the complexity of a spell.  
Power doesn't make something permanent, but a very complex spell will cling  
to an item and make it so. Also, the material of the item can help as  
well...if it is very strong and durable." Miyabi concluded with, "Quite a few  
things such as rarity, uniqueness, and other methods can accomplish what  
you want. I was planning on showing the first years how to make a   
pseudo-permanent item that expends it's magic in one shot as an introduction  
to that sort of thing. The more advanced classes will be told more."  
"Hm. That's good." Twister smiled at the professor. "Thanks for the  
info, Professor."  
Miyabi arched an eyebrow."I will be interested in seeing what you plan   
to do with it. My curiosity has been aroused by that last answer you wanted."   
"You'll see!" Twister called out as she quickly left.  
*Now I wonder what _that_ one is up to.* Miyabi chuckled to herself.  
*Whatever it is, it will likely surprise me again. Seems to have a penchant  
for that,* she smiled humorously.

As Twister left the room, she failed to notice a familiar person  
following her.  
Natsumi had started to listen in on Twister's conversation with the  
professor. Fortunately, when she had heard that Miyabi considered Twister her   
protege, Natsumi had gone red with rage and had missed whatever else the two   
had talked about.  
*Protege?! _That_ little nobody?! Never!* Fumed Natsumi, *I'll show  
_her_ what a _true_ magic-user can really do.* Natsumi followed 'Itazuka'   
now because she had some form of protection around her preventing   
scrying of her movements. Natsumi had tried earlier that day and merely   
got a fog. *The little witch had prepared herself for _that_, but there   
are other ways of finding out where you live.* She smiled viciously.  
Twister was walking quickly as she went around buildings, trying to   
find a good place to use some hot water from the thermos she was   
carrying in her backpack. Natsumi was half-running, trying to   
keep up with the fast pace the other girl was using. She lost Twister   
for a half-minute before she spotted the red-head disappearing around a   
building a little ways off. This time Natsumi ran in order to keep her   
quarry in sight. However, when she quickly ran around the corner of the   
building, a now-male Twister, just finished drying himself off, was   
standing in her way and they collided.  
Surprised at the sudden impact, Twister fell, with the equally  
startled Natsumi on his chest. He hit the grass lying upwards, saving  
Natsumi from most of the impact of hitting the ground.  
"Yah! What the?!" was what Twister shouted after he had recovered   
his wits.  
Natsumi was shaking her head to clear it from the initial collision.  
"Oh! My apologies! I was in a hurry." Then she saw the face, and body, of the  
person she had run into by accident and purred out, "But then, fortunate things  
_do_ happen once in a while." Thoughts of the red-headed girl fled her mind  
for the moment as she studied what she could see of the handsome young man  
she had ran into.  
This close scrutiny unnerved Twister as he lay there, temporarily  
stunned for a second, before the idea of this girl lying on top of him   
reached his brain.  
"Ah...I don't mean to offend, but...this _is_ an awkward position."  
"Of course. Let me get up." Slowly, Natsumi got off Twister and smiled  
at the young man's discomfort of the unhurried pace of the removal.  
When Twister got up in turn, he finally got a good look at the girl   
who had run him over and almost yelled in surprise. His face showed it   
plainly. *Gah! Natsumi! Notgoodnotgoodnotgood...* Was all he could think   
of in his shock.  
Thinking his surprise was due to her good looks, which was   
understandable, Natsumi's smile grew broader. "My name is Natsumi. I'm   
terribly sorry about this."  
Twister had to remind himself to pretend they had never met. "Ah...   
I'm Twister." Trying to get her mind off of examining him, which was extremely   
unnerving, he queried, "Um...what were doing in such a rush anyway?"  
Reminded of the purpose of _why_ she was running, Natsumi remembered  
about 'Itazuka' and quickly asked, "Did you see a red-haired girl go by here?"  
*Ah, ha! Following me, is that it?* He smirked inwardly at this bit  
of information to remember as he replied, "Yes, I did...but at the rate   
she was going I don't think you'll catch up to her now." To his   
surprise, this did not exactly dismay Natsumi.  
"Hm. Well, another day then." She looked at the now sweating   
Twister and smiled broadly at him. "Right now... I wouldn't mind to get   
to know _you_ better now."  
*Uh, oh. Whatever Ranma has _is_ catching, dang it.* However, before  
he could reply to her comment, he was interrupted by another angry voice.  
"So! There you are!"  
Thankfully, it wasn't Nabiki's. When he turned around and looked  
at who said it, he wasn't very thankful because, while he didn't know the name  
of the person, he recognized the face. As well as the other fifteen guys with  
the guy. It was the rival group that had been at the eating contest.   
The _physical education_ group.  
*Oh, boy.* Twister didn't like the look of this. "Uh...hi! What can I  
do for you?" Natsumi had retreated to the wall of the building and was watching  
with interest at the goings-on, curious at why these people were mad at this  
one person.  
Another guy spoke up from within the group. "We have a bone to pick   
with you."   
Scratching his head in puzzlement, Twister called out, "Hold it! Why  
are you guys so angry? I just won the eating contest, that's all. What's the  
big deal?"  
A third person angrily spoke up, "Not _that_! What happened later!"  
"Later? What are you...talking...about." Comprehension came to Twister,  
"Oh, right! I was wondering why Morio and Hito were laughing so hard.   
What did they do to you?" He paused, "Then again, maybe I don't want to   
know with _those_ two involved."  
The first guy spoke again, "We are _not_ going to say what we had to  
do!" He glared at Twister, "_You_ are the one who enabled them to win so we  
decided to get _some_ measure of revenge back!"  
Raising an eyebrow, Twister replied, "Considering who _you_ had, I   
would say you got your just deserts." He looked at the group. "Where is he  
anyway?"  
"He's still recovering from the contest so he managed to escape what  
happened to us," number two said. "_You_, however, will be a lot longer  
recovering."   
The group of athletes got ready and Twister did the same.  
*Oh, jeez. I'd better make sure I don't accidentally boost   
myself. I think the training Ranma's given me has given me enough   
self-control to control _that_ at least.* He grinned. *Then again, after   
the results with that bout with Akane I don't think I'll need to. None of   
these guys look like they know too much about martial arts and they're   
all first-years like me. This should be interesting with my altered   
body. They certainly deserve _something_ for going after me like this.*  
They all rushed in at once, trying to overwhelm him by numbers,   
but Twister just jumped and flipped over them as they stampeded under   
him. Both they and Natsumi were surprised at this display of ability.  
Twister landed and cheerfully shouted out, "Toro! Toro! Sorry I don't   
have my red cape guys, but it's still at the cleaners."   
The group turned to face him and advanced a little more cautiously,  
but still sure their superior numbers put them ahead.  
*BUZZZ. Try again, guys.* He waited for the first to attack   
him. He wasn't disappointed.  
"I am the best boxer in my class!" With this said, the boxer   
launched a series of punches and jabs at Twister.  
Not impressed, Twister dodged each fist as it came at him. "Ah! So  
you package things in cardboard boxes do you? Very good!"  
Enraged, the boxer threw himself at Twister to try to get a good hit  
in. However, a fist belonging to the opposition gave the boxer's sport a   
whirl...and succeeded with admirable results. The boxer flew backwards into   
his fellows, unconscious.  
Seeing the lack of success of the one-on-one conflict, the other   
fifteen guys slowly encircled Twister and closed in, ready for Twister to   
jump this time.  
*Hmm. Well, I've had enough. That punch wasn't boosted by my   
power so I believe it's under control. Therefore, these yo-yo's are about to   
become Twisted.* Before they got too close to restrict movement, Twister   
launched himself at a nearby follow and used a kick to the diaphragm to   
make him appreciate the wonder of breathing. Whirling around quickly, he   
jumped in the exact opposite direction and grabbed the shirt of a   
startled attacker as Twister passed over him. A body flip onto hard   
ground created another initiate for the Temple of the Breathing Miracle.   
Twister knocked out nine more of his foes before he accidentally left  
himself open to get tackled by a quarterback. The remaining three, who were   
also football players, piled on the startled Twister to avoid the fate of  
their buddies. Natsumi, who had been watching in wonder at Twister's display  
of skill, was a little disappointed that he had been defeated at last. When  
the pile of four bodies moved, she was startled. Twister had finally gotten a   
foothold and just stood up. This action dragged the astonished tacklers up  
since they were each holding a part of Twister's body firmly as they all   
instinctively held on.  
Now amused by the self-image of a human christmas tree, Twister called  
out, "Time for the Twister Twirl!" Figuring he was hidden by the mass of   
bodies, Twister used some levitation to start rotating in place rapidly.  
Strong as the football players arms were, they couldn't hold on long with the  
amount of centrifugal force pulling at their bodies. One by one, all four  
flew off and landed hard in separate locations. Twister immediately slowed  
down and stopped to clear his own head of spinning motion.  
*Dang! Akane could've leveled these guys without getting caught  
like that.* The bruises from the tackle could be Healed later. *We _are_   
pretty close in skill now, but that's in my female form and I'm more   
used to fighting with _that_ body, not this one. At least I'm certain I   
can control the psionic boost now. As for my opponents...*   
He saw that all the members of the group were either unconscious or   
unable to stand up at the moment, and smiled. "Well, I've always heard   
revenge isn't what it's cracked up to be." Looking at the amazed   
Natsumi, Twister said, "I'd better go before Rematch Part II!" He waved,   
picked up the backpack he had dropped before the fight, and ran off.   
Swifter than Natsumi could hope to try to attempt.  
Therefore, he missed the look of greedy acquisitiveness Natsumi gave  
him as Twister ran off.  
*'Twister', I think you will be seeing more of me.* She smiled   
seductively. *Even if I have to use magic to do it.*   
Softly, Natsumi laughed.

Chapter Ten  
\-----------

After making sure no one had followed him, Twister teleported   
home to do some things there before getting ready and teleporting again to  
a protected area around Nabiki's place. Twister then used a cold water  
thermos to change into a girl. She walked the rest of the way to the apartment  
building and buzzed for Yuriko.  
A sudden thought struck her then. *Hey! I thought I couldn't affect  
water! How did I teleport it in the thermos?? Hmm... Maybe I just affect   
space-time and not...*  
"Hello? Is that you, Itazuka?" said Yuriko's familiar cheerful voice.  
Twister decided to think about the water-teleport problem later and   
answered Yuriko, "Yup. You ready?"  
"Sure thing! Come on up!" The entrance door buzzed and Twister   
went in.  
After welcoming Twister in, Yuriko moved her to sit down on a couch.  
The enthusiastic beginner of magic rushed into the kitchen.  
"What did you want to drink?" she cried from the kitchen.  
"Just a soft drink. I don't care which, I'm not fussy."  
"Okay! I'll be out in a minute."  
Twister shook her head in amusement as she thought about what things  
to try to practice doing with spells. The spells Twister did may be easy for  
_her_ to visualize, but Yuriko might find it harder to do at first. She was  
still contemplating how to go about it when Yuriko came back into the room   
with a tray.  
Unfortunately, Nabiki neglected to mention to Twister how clumsy her   
roommate could be at times...and had a few stained shirts to prove it. The   
stain came from Yuriko's favorite drink, hot lemon tea. Halfway to where   
Twister was seated, the natural law for Yuriko kicked in and she tripped,   
spilling the closed soda can and spraying hot beverage towards her seated   
guest.  
The 'deep in thought' Twister became the 'deep in pain' Twister.  
"OW! OW! OW! OW! OW!" cried the shocked Twister as said person jumped  
around in an attempt to cool off.  
"Oh, I'm sorry! I'm so clumsy at times!" Yuriko was looking down at   
the floor, picking up the soda can. She straightened to comfort the   
injured Twister. "I really am sor..." Her voice trailed off as she stared   
at the familiar looking male in her room who was starting to slow down.  
"Jeez! That was hot! That...was....hot." What he was saying dawned  
on Twister and he looked at Yuriko for confirmation. Yes, she was indeed  
staring at him. "Oh, boy."  
"T-t-t-twister? H-how? W-why?" Yuriko was in shock.  
Sighing, Twister tried to wipe the lemony liquid off his face and sat  
down again. Arching an eyebrow in Yuriko's direction, he answered her, "You  
are in a _magic_ class and you ask _how_?" He chuckled.  
"But _why_?" Yuriko cried out.  
"To quote Doctor McCoy: 'She drafted me Jim!'" Twister smiled. "Prof.  
Miyabi didn't give me much of a choice once she found out I had magical   
ability."  
Getting out of her shock, Yuriko giggled a bit at the quote, but was  
still confused. "Then why did you come as a girl to class?"  
He groaned, "_That_ is due to the fact that I _cannot_ make magic while  
in _this_ form." Understanding shone in Yuriko's eyes as he went on, "I can  
only do psionics as a guy and magic as a girl. The Professor told me I   
had better not cloak my mystic power in class so I came the only way I   
could. Gave _her_ a shock I can tell you." They both laughed at that.  
"But how come you switch in the first place? Why did my drink change   
you?" Now past her shock, Yuriko was fascinated by Twister's form-changing.  
"That's a bit of a long story." Twister telekinetically lifted the  
soft drink from a startled, then delighted, Yuriko and brought it to him.  
Opening the can and taking a sip of the drink he continued, "In order to   
keep it short, I'll tell you the condensed version. I was a normal person   
before some crazy old hentai screwed up a summoning spell. It yanked _me_   
and...someone else into the Void. The other guy wasn't so nice and threw   
me into something called the Event, an immensely powerful thing which is   
the source of all Mind and Magic powers. I was not expected to survive,   
but somehow I did and arrived here to beat the living tar out of the   
other guy. I was a little mad." Yuriko giggled at this obvious   
understatement. "It changed me into what you see now, but I didn't change   
into a girl then. _That_ was the result of the other guy finding some   
cursed spring water that gives the form of a girl when doused in it. The   
water and my own new nature combined so now I can do both psionic and   
magic powers in different forms. Cold or room temperature water changes   
me into a girl. Hot water..." He waved at himself.  
"That's an exciting story, Twister." Yuriko smiled happily.  
Ruefully, Twister smiled, "I'm glad you liked it."  
A thought entered Yuriko's mind, "Does Nabiki know?"  
"Yup. She's known me practically since I was brought here." He sighed  
happily. "She doesn't seem to mind it. Of course, with _her_ family I'm not  
surprised. She's had plenty of time to become adaptable." Twister chuckled at  
Yuriko's curious look. "I won't even _try_ to explain that last part." He  
rubbed his hands together. "Anyway, I came here to help you with _magic_.  
Where's the bathroom so I can change back to help with that?"  
Smiling, Yuriko pointed in the direction of a door which Twister went   
into. When she emerged, Yuriko clapped her hands in delight.  
"That's _so_ neat." She gushed.  
Twister snorted, "Well, it makes life interesting anyway." She sat  
down again in a place opposite Yuriko, who was looking at Twister's clothes  
with interest.  
"You enchanted your clothes to fit both as a girl _and_ a boy?" With  
Twister's nod she continued, "It's not even stained by my tea!"  
"I have a _very_ thin layer of air clinging to my clothes. Makes it  
waterproof and unstainable and also has..." Still in a sitting position, Twister  
started floating up. "An extra option in fashion necessities."  
Wide-eyed at the floating Twister, Yuriko breathed, "Will _I_ be able  
to do that soon?"  
Floating back down, Twister nodded, "Most likely, though it may take a  
while. I seem to have a knack for this stuff. Likely from my 'accident'."  
Yuriko looked dreamy, "If I can do _that_, this would be all worth it."  
"Then let's get busy. Spellcasters, ho!"

Nabiki returned to the building around eight and felt that same sense  
of someone watching her. Whirling around, she tried to find the source,   
but, of course, no one was there. A little unnerved, Nabiki quickly   
entered the building. When she reached her apartment, the sounds of   
Yuriko giggling brought a small smile to her lips.  
*That girl is _always_ so happy! I wonder what got her attention   
_this_ time?* She thought amusedly.  
When she opened the door, Nabiki froze in astonishment.  
Yuriko had persuaded Twister to start with simple spells of levitation  
with objects. Thinking this harmless, Twister had complied. After an hour of  
bizarre results, Yuriko had finally got the correct visualization technique.  
She had then proceeded to practice on almost everything in sight. This   
resulted in the room looking like a scene from the space shuttle in orbit as  
objects hung floating in mid-air everywhere. Twister was trying hard not  
to burst out laughing as she sat on a floating couch. Quitting when she had  
started getting pretty tired, Yuriko happily giggled as she viewed what she  
had done.  
The noise of the door opening brought both magic-users attention to  
the stunned Nabiki. Twister got a good look at her and failed utterly in   
preventing helpless laughter with Yuriko joining in.  
"Oh...jeez! Your...face...Nabiki!" Got out Twister.  
This broke the paralysis. "_What_ are you _doing_?!" Shouted Nabiki   
when she closed the door behind her.  
Laughter stopped, but still amused, Twister tried to calm her down,  
"Don't worry about it, Nabiki. Yuriko needed the practice. I'll catch it with  
my TK when she cancels each spell so everything doesn't crash down."  
"But you're a gi..." Nabiki stopped and looked at each of the floating  
pair. "Wait a minute! She knows!?"  
Twister sighed and nodded, "Yup. She tried for the Olympic record for  
hot tea-tossing earlier so I told her about my powers." Yuriko blushed and  
looked a little guilty through her elation of getting the spell to work.  
Nabiki slapped herself on the forehead, "Oh, right! I knew I had   
forgotten to tell you something!" She looked in amusement now at the floating  
objects. "I think you'd better start dropping things before someone notices."  
"Your wish is my command." Twister flew through the room towards the  
bathroom.  
*I _knew_ things would start getting weird around here.* Nabiki sighed  
inwardly.

After Twister had changed back to a guy, he caught the objects that  
Yuriko mentally canceled the spell for with his TK and slowly brought them  
down. He, of course, only did this for heavy stuff like the couches. The  
smaller objects were easily caught by hand. When they were done, Twister   
smiled at Nabiki and started getting ready to go.  
"I still have a few things to do tonight so I'd better run." He turned  
to Nabiki and smiled, "Sorry to have to leave so soon."  
"You'll make it up later." She smirked.  
Rolling his eyes, Twister continued, "I _do_ need to talk to Kunou  
if I get done on time. Do you know where he lives?"  
"Kunou? Sure." Nabiki told him the address and apartment number with  
a little curiosity. "Why do you need to see him?"  
"Advice on a project." Twister smiled mysteriously.  
"_Why_ do I ask?" The memory of being watched returned and she asked,  
"I felt those eyes on me again tonight as I came in. Do you have anything  
to help me with that?"  
Looking concerned now, Twister nodded, "Yeah. I have a necklace that  
might do it." He gave her a spare enchanted diamond necklace that was   
exactly like the one he had given Yuriko. "This _should_ help if it's   
magical. The enchantment isn't terribly strong, but it should mislead   
and some other stuff as well."  
"Thank you, Twister." Nabiki looked at him with relief.  
Embarrassed, Twister started going, "Uh...no problem. See you!" He  
quickly left.  
Yuriko walked up to stand by Nabiki, smiling, "He's such a sweet  
guy, Nabiki. You sure got a nice boyfriend!" She giggled.  
Nabiki smiled, "Yes, I think I did too."

The project Twister was planning on doing was for his Magic half. He  
could always create a weapon in his Mind form, but for the magic half he   
needed something that would always be available. He had decided on   
creating a sword for himself, but needed some raw materials. The methods   
for making a strong, flexible sword he knew from reading a lot of fantasy   
novels, as well as from books in the library, which described the different   
processes. Making the sword should not be too hard, but Twister knew that   
a sword needed to be balanced correctly. For _that_, he would need Kunou   
to guide him when he was almost finished the thing. How he would _make_  
it was something he had planned in the back of his mind for the past week.  
At the apartment, he quickly found a large, spare diamond he had made   
and what was left of some gold he had TK'ed from the ocean a while ago. Twister  
left before Yasuro could ask what he was doing. He flew to a nearby dump site  
and played with different steel mixtures he found in minute amounts until he  
sensed that he had found what all he needed. That was what Twister   
proceeded to collect for his sword. When he had enough together and TK'ed   
it into two large masses, he started making the blade using a folding method   
for increased strength and flexibility. Using the process he had read   
about in the local library, he folded the metal for the blade over one   
thousand times while heating it and hammering it with his telekinesis.   
The normal total of folds for a sword made normally was below two   
hundred. It was _much_ easier to do with his abilities.  
The blade was soon deemed ready so he shaped and polished the finished  
result. On the two-sided blade's cutting edges, Twister sharpened them to  
the molecular level, making it as ultra-sharp as his diamond blades.   
Fashioning a hilt was easy and onto it he placed the diamond as the pommel,   
letting molecules migrate between stone and metal to weld them together.   
Also, he shaped the sword guards into the forms of dragons. Finishing the   
sword, he joined hilt and blade together and coated portions of it with gold.  
Twister looked at the completed sword in satisfaction.  
It was as beautiful as it was sharp.   
*Now to get it balanced.* He ran to Kunou's residence since the time   
was now approaching eleven at night.  
After a bit of haggling, he finally got into Kunou's apartment.  
Kunou faced him with some irritation. "Why did you deem it necessary  
to interrupt Tatewaki Kunou from his nightly rest? The heavens favor not those  
who are not at their peak at all times and the bounty of the world becomes  
inaccessible." His personal ninja looked bored, sitting at the side of   
the room while listening to this speech. It wasn't Sasuke because he had   
stayed back with Kodachi to protect, *Yaright...,* the younger Mistress.  
Rolling his eyes, Twister told him, "I made a sword for a friend who  
wants it pretty quickly, but I'm not sure if it's balanced correctly or not.  
I believe it's kinda important for a sword. Knowing that you were an expert   
with such matters, I came to you to adjust it correctly."  
Kunou looked indignant. "Of _course_ a blade must be properly balanced!  
Balance is the way of the universe which..." His speech drifted off as Twister  
pulled the almost done sword out of some newspaper he had found in the dump.  
When Twister carefully handed the sword hilt first to him, Kunou   
reverently gripped it as he studied the detailed dragons on the hilt of   
the blade. Kunou softly uttered, "A sword of the heavens indeed. It would   
be a travesty if such a blade were not balanced."   
He agreed to help in other words.  
"It's a straight blade so will there be a problem for you to...?"  
"You think Tatewaki Kunou cannot balance this?! I, the Blue Thunder  
of Furinkan High, shall prove you wrong!"  
Twister rolled his eyes and sighed, *You're in college now, idiot.   
Guess he hasn't figured out a new title yet. Oh, well.*  
Under his direction, Twister altered the length of the blade an   
extremely small bit at a time before Kunou deemed the sword perfect. When   
he reluctantly gave it back, Twister could now tell how badly off the   
sword had been.  
Twister smiled in relief, "Thanks, Kunou." He chuckled. "And for a   
special treat..." Placing the sword on the floor and using his TK, he   
started engraving dragon designs he had worked out before along the   
length of the blade that Twister had gold-plated. Kunou and his now   
excited ninja watched in awe as incredibly detailed designs, not possible   
by hand, appeared on the fantastically sharp blade. A complete dragon   
with background was soon done on one side and Twister flipped the blade   
over to do the other side in a mirror-like manner. When it was done,  
Twister grabbed the hilt and smiled.  
"Now, just two things left to do on this part. First, condense the   
sword's matter so it shrinks. Second, strengthen the molecular bonds to   
increase the strength of the blade further and prevent corruption, like   
rust."  
Kunou frowned. "Shrink? Is this not for a man?"  
"Nope. It's for a girl I know fairly well." He shrugged. "I owe her   
a favor and no, it's not Nabiki." Twister had seen the question coming.  
*And I found out earlier how much I would have to shrink it to fit my  
female form.*  
"Such a fair blade must be for a fair creature indeed."  
Twister chuckled, "I guess she is." Then he concentrated on bringing  
the molecules of the sword together enough so it would fit his female half  
perfectly. The sword was outlined in blue fire that came from Twister's hands  
and shrank until he stopped the process. Then he willed the molecules of the  
sword to strengthen their bonds and he actually felt the sword become harder  
and sharper. "As if it wasn't sharp enough already." Twister mused to   
himself. He turned to Kunou and bowed to him. "Thank you for your help,   
Kunou."  
Kunou waved his hand, "The pleasure was mine for helping in the creation  
of such a magnificent blade. May it do wonders for it's intended wielder."  
Red with embarrassment, Twister rubbed the back of his head, "Well,  
I only made it tonight, but thanks all the same." He chuckled. "Wonders   
it will do indeed." He waved good-bye and left as Kunou stood in stunned   
surprise.  
The ninja murmured with wonder, "That blade made just _tonight_? A  
mighty person indeed."  
Kunou nodded. "I have seen his full power once. He is indeed one favored  
by heaven and an enemy of demons. For just as I..."  
The ninja sighed to himself.   
It looked like it would be a long night.

When Twister came into the apartment he found that Yasuro had, wonder  
of wonders, gone to bed early for once and was not stuck in front of his  
computer. This suited Twister just fine as he planned to be very busy in his  
room for a while. He filled a large glass of cold water in the kitchen, went  
to his room, and quietly closed the door behind him.  
*Now, I've done the _easy_ part I think. Prof. Miyabi said that a   
spell had to be _complex_ in order to become permanent.* He smiled. *This  
thing is going to be just that. I guess I should call it the Dragonsword  
since it looks the part now.* Twister got ready and used half the water to  
become a girl.  
Holding the sword, Twister smiled as the size and balance felt  
perfect to her. *Two points. I wonder if I should ever ask Kunou for lessons  
like I get from Ranma.* Twister shuddered. *Somehow, I don't think so.  
He's good, but I'd worry if I approached him in female form. 'Oh, date me!'  
Phtt. Not. Male would be much better, but I might get wet, somehow, around   
him. I think I'll wait and hope I find someone else as good.*  
*Well, time to play.*   
The rhyme was correspondingly lengthy in size in relation  
to the complexity of the spell. Metal seemed to be more resilient to the strain  
of power so the sword _should_ be able to handle it, but it would be close.  
Twister began the rhyme and noticed the power drain halfway through the spell.  
This was going to take a _lot_ of power that she hoped she had. Mystic senses  
let her see a complex web of energy forming around the weapon before her on  
the bed as she drew near completion. A tendril of the web touched her for a  
second, turned her color of purple, and transmitted the shade throughout   
the web. Finally, Twister was done and a rush of power flowed from her   
body into the web. It pulsed once and slowly sank into the metal of the   
sword. The sword glowed brightly. Twister feared that she had done too   
much, but the purple light slowly faded to nothing.  
Twister was almost totally drained. Only the fact that she had been  
in that eating contest, gaining a _lot_ of energy, had enabled her to make  
the spell work.   
*Oh, man. I'm beat and hot. I didn't realize how warm tonight was.*  
She wearily looked at the cool glass of water. *I'd better warm the glass up   
and use it before going to sleep. First, however...* Twister carefully   
tested the blade with a finger and smiled widely at the results. *It works!  
Time for bed now...after I warm the glass and use the water.*  
Twister did so and proudly hid the sword under the bed before taking  
off his sweaty shirt and falling swiftly asleep on the bed.

Chapter Eleven  
\--------------

Early next day, Yasuro woke up hot, but refreshed. For   
a long time he had not been going to bed very early. Being on the   
computer made him lose track of time. Yesterday had been an exception   
since he had wanted to get up without having Twister wake him up for once.  
*I'm sure he means well, but getting up like that almost every day  
is a little nerve-wrecking.* He smiled slightly as he remembered Twister's  
usual wake up call. Twister's _loud_ and _startling_ wake up call.  
Sighing, he got up and listened for his roommate's movements.  
Nothing.  
Blinking in surprise, Yasuro got out of bed and went to peek in   
Twister's room. Amazingly, there was a prone figure, without a shirt on,   
still dozing away on the bed.  
*Smart idea. I wonder why he's still sleeping. Must have got home   
pretty late. He _did_ seem to be in a rush.* An idea came to him and he smiled  
as he contemplated it. *Should I? Yes, I think I will.* He softly chuckled  
while going into the kitchen. *It will make up for waking me up all the time  
and it _is_ hot.*  
Returning with a big bowl of water with ice cubes, Yasuro looked at  
the peacefully sleeping Twister before gleefully throwing the contents of  
the bowl at him. The reaction he got was the expected one.   
Another reaction caught him entirely by surprise.  
"YAAHHH!! That's cold!" Twister shouted as her sleep was rudely   
interrupted. Shaking her head free of ice-water, Twister glared at Yasuro,   
"Couldn't you have found a less _shocking_ way to wake me up? Like a foghorn   
perhaps?" Then she saw Yasuro staring at her chest region and realized with  
shock what had happened. Blushing, Twister covered her now-present breasts  
with an arm. "Oops."   
*Jeez! Another person finds out in as many days.*  
Snapping out of it, Yasuro blushed in turn and averted his eyes to   
look instead at Twister's red-hair framed face. Both comprehension and   
confusion showed on his face.  
Finally he spoke out, "So _you_ were the girl we saw enter the  
apartment! That explains the wet hair you have some of the time. But how...?"  
Fumbling for the shirt she had discarded last night, Twister sighed,  
"Long story." Twister's stomach rumbled. "Ah, during breakfast, alright? I  
need some food pretty badly if I can hear _that_."  
Yasuro rubbed his head and leaned on a wall, "I guess so." He watched  
the female Twister leave for the kitchen.   
*This is definitely not what I had expected this morning.* He thought.

Struggling with the story he had just heard, Yasuro viewed the still  
female Twister eating with ravenous hunger.  
"So you got splashed by some _magically_ cursed water and _this_   
happened?" Twister nodded while eating. "And you can do magic yourself while  
being a girl and psionics in boy form?" He received the victory sign as  
confirmation and Yasuro sighed while rubbing his eyes, "This sounds like one   
of my science fiction books."  
Swallowing, Twister commented, "Don't forget fantasy too!" She grinned.  
She had to admit that he was taking this well.  
Yasuro had to laugh at that, "True. At least I finally know what all  
the weird things about you have been about. It _had_ been irritating me."  
Finally finished eating, and feeling one hundred percent better,   
Twister sighed, "That's better. I really drained myself last night." She   
looked at Yasuro, "How do you feel about this?"  
"Well, you're definitely easy to look at..." Yasuro grinned as Twister  
flushed red. "Relax, I'm joking. I'm okay with it and I won't tell anyone   
about it." He laughed, "But it sure makes reading my books more interesting.  
Though...you'd better watch out for Morio and Hito. I don't think they've ever  
given up on finding your girl half."  
Looking resigned, Twister glanced at a clock, "Joy and rapture. I   
guess I'd better change back and get ready for classes."  
Yasuro nodded. "Me too. By the way..." Twister looked inquiringly at   
him, "I've heard that in that English class you've taken you are doing   
extremely well. How come?"  
Twister smirked, "That's my primary language, remember? I learned  
_Japanese_ from that arch-demon's spell."  
Yasuro looked disgusted and Twister laughed.

Finishing the first few classes in the morning, Twister sat down to  
have lunch. Halfway through this, Yasuro, Morio, and Hito came by and joined  
him where he was sitting.  
"Hello there! I hear you've been working with the ladies already,  
Twister!" Morio smirked.  
Blinking at this, Twister replied with an intelligent, "Huh?"  
Hito excitedly explained, "That great-looking second year student!  
You know! Natsumi!"  
Twister had been drinking his beverage as he listened, but he choked   
when he heard the name. Getting his breath back, Twister denied it, "Wait  
a moment! Why on Earth do you think _that_?"  
"She's been asking a lot of first year students about you today in  
classes and she looked like she wanted to do more than just _talk_ to you."  
Morio saw Twister's pale face and added mildly, "I take it you aren't   
interested."  
"Gah! Of course not! Firstly, Nabiki would _kill_ me! Secondly, I've  
seen her from...afar, and I think she's a little _dangerous_ if you know what  
I mean." Twister grimaced, "'Predatory' is another word that comes to mind."  
"Well, she certainly has gotten a high opinion of you somewhere.   
Do you know why?" Yasuro queried.  
Light dawned in Twister's eyes and he smacked his forehead, "Oh,   
right! She saw my little 'argument' with that group you guys made that bet  
with. They were a little peeved at what you guys did to them."  
The others were wide-eyed at this, "You mean _that's_ why all of them  
look like they've been through a wringer today?" Hito exclaimed.  
"How did you manage _that_ neat little trick?" Morio asked curiously.  
He looked amused by the news.  
"None of them asked me if I knew martial arts." Twister grinned. "I  
have a friend who's been teaching me. He's _very_ good and I learn fast. Much  
to that group's disappointment. It helped that I'm stronger than I look."  
Yasuro chuckled, "They certainly picked the wrong target."  
"I'll say! They didn't look very happy I'll tell you that!" Hito   
gleefully laughed.  
Morio chuckled with him, "True." Then he looked thoughtful, "That  
Natsumi girl was also looking for a red-head that matches the description of  
the one that _we_ saw in our building. Nobody she asked seemed to know about   
her, which made her a little angry it seemed." Morio thoughtfully smiled,   
"At least we know her name now. I wonder where this 'Itazuka' lives..."  
Twister and Yasuro both tried to look innocent.  
"Ah, well. I _do_ know _one_ class she is in now." Morio grinned,   
"Soon we'll see just what she's like. Right, Hito?"   
"You bet!"   
*Oh, boy.* Twister groaned inwardly.   
Yasuro looked halfway concerned and halfway amused.

Thankfully, the rest of the day passed without incident though Twister  
had to quickly dodge Natsumi every once in a while. This was done fairly   
easily since she seemed to be gleefully thinking about something else   
besides hunting for Twister. When he was done classes, he went to an   
all-you-can-eat place to restore his energy levels. After leaving the   
place, with several fascinating expressions on the staff's faces behind   
him, Twister went home. He finished some homework, talked to Nabiki over   
the phone for a nice long time, and finally went to bed.  
The next day was fine...until halfway through Prof. Miyabi's class.   
The class had been moved to a larger, amphitheater-like room since   
Miyabi figured that they would need the extra space soon. Probably the   
result of Twister's huge illusion that she had done before.   
Miyabi was right about needing the space.  
That was when Natsumi had decided to openly attack Twister with a   
magical creation she had been making for some time using one of her family's   
ancient scrolls. It had taken her almost four days to quickly finish it   
for battle with her red-haired adversary and Natsumi was sure it would   
punish 'Itazuka' effectively.  
"Now I shall show you, Itazuka, what a _real_ use of magic is!" Natsumi  
laughed as she entered the large area in front of the class. "I challenge you  
to face my creation!"  
Twister sighed and waited for the professor to do something, but  
Miyabi just shook her head when Twister looked at her.  
"I cannot interfere with a challenge, Itazuka." She looked   
apologetic. "It's a tradition that _has_ to be obeyed."  
"Oh, joy. Playtime with Miss Wonder Wizardess." Twister sighed   
again and walked down to the area where Natsumi, fuming at   
Twister's comment, waited. She turned to face Natsumi and spread her hands,   
"Ready when you are," Twister said as she smiled sardonically.  
Smiling a wicked smile, Natsumi took something from a pocket and  
carefully placed it on the floor. Twister wondered what she was doing until  
Natsumi made a few gestures directed at the small object and it started to  
grow. And grow. And grow some more. It stopped at around eight feet in height  
and was humanoid shaped.   
It was also made entirely of iron.  
Recognizing the thing from descriptions in fantasy novels and AD&D  
monster descriptions, Twister groaned in disbelief, "An _iron golem_??? Now  
_how_ did you make _that_?"  
A little shocked that Twister _knew_ what she had made, Natsumi still  
smirked at Twister, "An old family recipe. We still had the mold even." She  
smiled, "And iron nowadays is _very_ easy to find." Her face was gleeful   
as she pointed at Twister and shouted, "Attack!"  
The golem moved with surprising swiftness at Twister in an attempt to  
grab her. Twister was disinclined to accommodate it so she dodged to the side  
as the massive construct passed by her. The class was getting a ringside seat  
to this spectacle. The watchers were feeling mixed fear for Twister and   
thrilled excitement at the combat. Yuriko was worriedly watching Twister and   
hoped that the fight would go well.  
Turning to face it's opponent again, the iron creation slowly advanced  
on Twister who carefully backed away. Not caring to have a long prolonged   
fight in front of people who might get hurt, Twister decided to try out her   
newest 'toy'.  
"Been a busy gal, haven't you, Natsumi?" She replied while ducking  
a grab from the golem.  
Natsumi smirked, "I have indeed. You will, of course, lose in the   
end, little girl. My creation cannot tire and is impervious to most   
magics. I see you must know that since you have not tried anything upon   
it yet."  
"Yup!" Dodge. "But you know," Leap. "_I_ haven't been idle either.   
Whoop!" Twister flipped backwards to avoid getting caught, and to put a   
little distance between her and the golem.  
"Oh, so?" Natsumi called out contemptuously, "And _what_ do you think  
_you_ have done will help you now?"  
Smiling broadly, and silently praying that it worked, Twister called  
out while raising an open palm, "Just this! Dragonsword! I call thee to _me_!"  
It wasn't necessary to speak, but Twister was feeling dramatic.  
A purple glow of energy appeared just above Twister's raised palm. It  
lengthened and stretched into an outline of a sword. With a POP!, the dragon  
illustrated blade Twister had made a few nights earlier appeared and she  
grabbed the hilt quickly before it fell to the floor.  
It worked.  
Natsumi was surprised, but didn't show it. "Am I supposed to be   
impressed by a _teleportation_ spell? Just _how_ do you suppose you will be  
able to do anything with just a mere sword?" Nevertheless, Natsumi was   
getting a bad feeling about this.  
"As a friend of mine once said: 'Just step back and watch me work.'"   
Twister replied cheerfully as she held the hilt of the sword with both   
hands. The golem relentlessly advanced with one hand outstretched,   
reaching for her. Ducking the hand, Twister swung at the arm it was   
attached to.  
The sword went through as if cutting a piece of soft toffee and the   
arm fell off where it had been cut. Twister stopped the swing before the   
blade hit the floor. She hadn't been prepared at how _well_ the sword   
did. She had increased it's cutting ability still _further_ with it's   
enchantment.   
*Talk about overkill, but good thing I did anyway. The golem had   
magical protection from normal swords, I guess, from the resistance I felt.*   
Twister thought.  
Staring with disbelief, Natsumi saw her magnificent creation disarmed.  
Literally. She then reddened with rage as Twister stepped back and regarded  
the sword's work with a grin.  
"It slices! It dices! It's the amazing ginsu sword! It never dulls   
even after the toughest battles! Buy now while offer lasts." Twister   
chuckled.  
Blind with rage now, Natsumi screamed out, "The battle isn't over  
_yet_! FIRE!"  
Responding to it's Mistress's command, the golem opened its mouth and  
a roaring torrent of fire spewed forth, engulfing Twister. The class and the  
professor looked on in horror as the form of Twister vanished in the thick  
sheets of flame. After ten seconds of this, Natsumi had regained control  
of herself and, smiling gleefully, told the golem to stop. As the fire slowly  
stopped coming from the golem, everyone numbingly prepared themselves for what   
they knew they would find. Finally, the flames died and a form appeared.  
Twister was completely untouched by the fire and ticked off to boot.  
Eyes almost glowing in anger, Twister ground out, "I call this blade  
'Dragonsword' for a _reason_, Natsumi. That includes _fire resistance_!"   
*And _damned_ lucky I put it in too!* She turned her attention to the golem,   
"Say bye-bye to your toy!"   
Stunned by this, Natsumi could only watch as Twister leaped at the  
golem and, blindingly fast, sliced her painstakingly made creation into  
little iron chunks of metal with the unbelievably sharp sword she held.  
When done dissecting the golem, the angry Twister was _still_ not satisfied.  
She leaped towards _Natsumi_, sword raised high above her head, before anybody  
could stop her.  
Seeing this, Natsumi had time to raise her arms in futile self-defense  
and scream as the blade swooped down towards her helpless form. Everybody  
turned their heads to avoid the sight just before the scream died.  
Professor Miyabi was feeling sick as she quickly ran over to where  
Twister was standing above the fallen girl.  
"What have you _done_?!" Miyabi shouted out as she stared at Twister  
in shocked anger.  
Surprisingly, Twister chuckled, "Scared the _hell_ out of one   
vindictive know-it-all," *'Bitch' is another word I could use,* Twister thought  
as she went on, "is what _I_ would say I have done." She grinned at the   
professor, "Did you _really_ think I would kill her?"  
Surprised, Miyabi looked down and saw, not the bloody form she expected  
to see, but rather an unconscious Natsumi with her dress cut in half all the  
way down the middle.  
"How...?"  
"Among fire resistance, the blade will pass harmlessly through human  
flesh, even though it will stun the person temporarily if it hits the head."  
Twister chuckled, "I did _not_ want to cut myself on _this_ pig-sticker!"   
She glanced at the split clothing. "Um. I think a little embarrassment   
will also make up for what she _tried_ to do." A gleam appeared in her   
eye as an Evil Idea formed. "Do you mind if give her to someone who can   
take her to the nurse's office?"  
Considering the prone form at her feet, Miyabi silently debated for   
a few seconds then nodded, "Very well. Come back soon."  
"Yes, ma'am!" Twister grinned as she effortlessly lifted the   
unconscious girl onto a shoulder and walked out of the room. When she was   
outside the room, she spied the two boys she had half-expected to be there and   
grinned nastily.  
"Excuse me!" Two heads lifted and brightened as they saw who had called  
them. Before they could speak, however, Twister interrupted them. "Could you  
take this girl to the nurse's office? It's nothing serious, but I have to go  
back to class right away. Please?" She smiled cutely.  
Unable to refuse, one of the boys uncertainly replied, "Ah, sure!   
But..."  
"Great!" Twister quickly took Natsumi off her shoulder, and into the  
other boy's arms, before running back to class. "Thanks a lot! Bye!"  
She closed the door behind her.  
"Well. That was a brief discussion, I must admit." Morio mused out  
loud as he stared were the girl had gone.  
Hito was still holding Natsumi in his arms. "Yeah. Could you help  
me here? I'm not very strong you know and...urk!"  
Turning around at his friend's sudden sound, Morio wondered what had  
happened now. "What's the matter?" Then he saw himself.   
Morio remembered the girl as that beautiful Natsumi girl who had   
been after Twister before, but that was not what had shocked Hito. The   
cut, that divided her clothes and was now causing them to all fall off,   
was the true reason. Hito was having a terrible time trying to get   
handhold on her without causing articles of clothing to fall off. He   
wasn't having much luck and Natsumi was now half-naked as a result.   
Luckily, she was not apparently waking up anytime soon.  
Smiling broadly, Morio contemplated the scene before him.  
"Well, well, well... Opportunity knocks, I believe. Good thing we   
brought our camera." He grinned as Hito struggled with the still form of   
the girl.

Coming back to class, Twister smiled at the clapping students and  
picked up her sword that she had dropped before leaving the room.  
Twister flourished the sword in a grand gesture as she bowed to the   
class, "Thank yew."   
Eyeing the sword with interest, Prof. Miyabi spoke up, "Is _that_ why  
you asked me about permanent spells for items?"  
"Uh, huh. I think I'd better put it away though." Speaking to the   
sword, Twister said, "Go home now." And with a purple flash, it was gone.  
"Hm. Just like a pet."  
"Except a pet normally cannot slice apart an iron golem with ridiculous  
ease." Miyabi commented with slight irony.  
Embarrassed, Twister rubbed the back of her head, "Well, I think I   
overdid the cutting power of the sword a bit." She shrugged. "Oh, well."  
With that, she went back to her seat.  
Looking worried, Yuriko whispered to Twister, "I thought she had  
_killed_ you!"  
"Almost _did_ the stupid... I was bloody lucky I put that fire  
resistance part into the enchantment." Twister shook her head in irritation.  
"She really ticked me off there. At least no one was hurt, thankfully."  
Yuriko calmed down a bit and smiled, "You _do_ fight well."  
Before stopping the conversation, Twister quickly got out, "Maybe,  
but I _still_ have to learn how to _use_ a sword properly," she chuckled.  
Looking incredulous, Yuriko stared at Twister as Prof. Miyabi started  
the class up again.

Elsewhere at the moment, a person was searching through various arcane  
books with great care.  
Takaya smiled as he found what he had sought for in an ancient tome.  
*At last! I have found the best way to use Itazuka's power for my own!  
Now all I have to do is find a way to make her do it.* He chuckled. *I had  
not planned on ever doing this, but if it _truly_ lets me access her power  
freely then I certainly will do so.*  
Closing the book, Takaya mused over the method he had found.  
*Now, how _shall_ I force her to marry me?*

Chapter Twelve  
\--------------

Yasuro was listening to Twister's account of the fight with Natsumi  
as Twister inspected the Dragonsword for any possible scratches.   
"So she brought an _iron golem_?!" Yasuro shook his head in wonder.  
"That's right out of the AD&D role-playing games I play sometimes. How did  
your professor explain the fire damage?"  
Twister smirked, "_What_ fire damage? One spell from the   
Professor and it was fixed." He carefully set down the sword, after seeing   
that nothing was wrong with it, and pointed at it. "It's a good thing I   
made this. Otherwise, I might have been a crispy critter."  
Looking at the sword, Yasuro could only agree with that. "True.   
Natsumi's really going to be out for your blood now."  
"Don't I know it." Twister sighed.  
"What did you do with her after the fight anyway?"  
Smirking at the memory, Twister said, "Well... I sort of _gave_ her to  
Morio and Hito, who were waiting for _me_ outside, to take to the nurse's  
office."  
Wide-eyed, Yasuro choked out, "_Morio_ and _Hito_?? With her clothing  
cut open in the front all the way down the middle??" Twister nodded and  
Yasuro started laughing. "Oh, jeez! That's _cruel_, Twister!"  
Twister snorted, "At the moment, I have _no_ sympathy for her." He   
stretched his arms and legs as he lay on the couch. "She'll likely be a week  
or two trying to recover from that little duel hopefully."  
Facing his computer again, Yasuro talked to Twister in amusement.   
"Natsumi won't likely attempt your _female_ side, Twister, but as you are   
_now_... And only a few people saw the fight you know."  
This truth dawned on Twister and he closed his eyes in denial, "No!  
Nonononononono!" He sighed wearily as he nodded reluctantly, "You're   
right. She doesn't know about me being 'Itazuka' and only the _magic_   
class saw her being defeated. She won't want to return _there_ too quickly,   
but my other courses _and_ between them... I still have to dodge her then.   
Joy." Twister put his hands on his face and shook his head.  
Just then, there was a knock at the door. When Yasuro got up and opened  
it, a happy Morio walked in.  
"Hello, you two! You'll never guess what happened today!" He saw   
Twister with his hands still on his head and cocked an eyebrow. "What's up   
with _you_, Twister?"  
Removing the hands, Twister sourly looked at Morio, "One word. Natsumi.  
I've had to dodge her every once in a while now for the past few days. Except  
later today for some reason." *Which I know all too well why.*  
Gleefully, Morio rubbed his hands, "I can answer that. Me and Hito saw  
that cute red-head today, but before we could really talk to her she dumped an  
unconscious Natsumi on us to take to the nurse. Since she _said_ it was nothing  
serious, we...took a few pictures of her...ah...au naturalle you might say."   
Seeing Yasuro's shocked look, Morio shrugged innocently, "Well, she _was_   
halfway to that state anyway." His face turned thoughtful, "I wonder _how_ her   
clothes got split down the middle anyway. Might be useful to know someday."  
Suddenly, an idea came to Twister, "Hm. Could _I_ get a few copies of  
those pictures?" Seeing the other two's surprised faces, he hastily added,  
"Not to _look_ at, you guys! If she ever finds out about Nabiki I might need   
something to get her off Nabiki's back." Twister slapped his forehead. "Gah!  
I'm thinking like Nabiki now! Bad sign."  
Chuckling, Morio nodded, "Sure. Why not? It's for a good cause. But  
you'll owe me one so be warned."  
Twister arched an eyebrow, "Ha! What about the eating contest and the   
reprisal afterwards! I'd say _you_ owe _me_ bucko!"  
"Oh, alright. We'll be even then since you're counting." With Twister's  
snort, Morio grinned and closed the door on his way out.  
"Planning ahead, Twister?" Yasuro inquired.  
"Ohhh, yes. It worked with the sword so it likely will work now. I   
just hope I won't need to." Twister sighed once more. "Wishful thinking..."

Thursday afternoon brought no joy to Natsumi. She was still fuming  
over her defeat by 'Itazuka', and the state of her dress when she came to in  
the nurse's office.  
*If I find out _who_ removed and stole my bra they will find  
out just _what_ it means to get me angry.* She murderously thought to herself.  
After interrogating one or two of the weaker-willed students of the first   
year class, she had ruled out 'Itazuka' as the culprit. *Those fools said   
she returned after a minute so it could not have been her, but she has   
_still_ truly earned my wrath.*  
Suddenly, her anger collapsed as she thought about the fight. A slight  
depression filled her as she thought on, *Just _how_ did she _create_ such  
a weapon as obviously powerful as that sword? The illusion of that dragon and  
now _this_ points to her being more than just an average student, but _where_  
did she _come_ from!* Natsumi gritted her teeth in frustration, *Even asking  
other students from first year failed to find out much about her. It's as  
if she only comes to that _one_ class and with that damnable protecting  
spell I can't follow her with magic. I must think about this further before  
trying any sort of action against her.* She spotted a familiar looking person  
walk by where she was hiding and smiled. *I believe _he_ should be a welcome  
distraction to get my mind away from that little witch for a while.*  
Leaving her spot, Natsumi followed her objective and planned on how  
to corner her prey.

Twister was almost at the place where he and Nabiki had planned to  
meet when he had a faint sense of dread creep over him. He paused and wondered  
what the feeling had been about.  
*That's odd. Now why...?* Looking ahead, he didn't see anything wrong  
besides Nabiki not being there yet. When he looked behind, he found out why  
he had gotten the feeling of dread. *Oh, no. I have _got_ to work on my extra  
senses to warn me about these things _earlier_.* He steeled himself as Natsumi  
realized he was looking right at _her_. She started walking towards Twister.  
Natsumi finally got to the spot where Twister was nervously standing  
and smiled at him in a seductive way, "Hello again...Twister, was it not?"  
"Um...yes." Twister was trying to think how to get out of this so he  
stalled for time. "I heard that you were asking about me. I didn't think I was  
so interesting that a chance meeting like the one we had would get you so  
curious about me."  
The young sorceress smiled a little wider and stepped closer to Twister  
as she replied, "It was not the meeting itself as the _fascinating_ show you   
put on with those other boys. Quite a remarkable feat. You are _very_ good."  
"I have a good teacher and he's much better than _me_ right now."  
That raised an eyebrow.   
"Your teacher must be amazing then from what _I_ saw _you_ do." She  
slid closer to Twister while looking him straight in the eye.  
Twister was frantically screaming inside. *Helphelphelphelp!* Sweating  
heavily now, he tried to stay reasonably calm, but was failing, "Yes, I guess  
you could say he is."   
Twister was knocking his head mentally trying to find a way out of this  
mess when Life sent him a reprieve.  
"Twister!" A familiar voice called out.  
Arriving at the meeting place, Nabiki had been wondering where Twister   
was when she spied him nervously standing in front of another girl she didn't  
remember ever seeing before. Noticing the predatory gleam in the girl's eye,  
she immediately deduced what was going on and anger rushed to the fore. *Now  
just _who_ is _that_ trying to snare Twister?* She mentally growled before  
striding purposely towards the confrontation. When she shouted out Twister's  
name, the look of relief on his face as he turned towards her took away most  
of the anger, but not all.  
"Ah! Nabiki! I see you made it. I was wondering what was holding you  
up." Reluctantly remembering Natsumi, Twister hurriedly introduced them,  
"Nabiki, this is _Natsumi_." He stressed the name. "She literally ran into  
me a couple of days ago." Twister made a false chuckle and hoped Nabiki   
recalled the name.  
She did. That didn't stop her from trying to needle Natsumi. "Ah, yes,  
now I remember. The one who doesn't look where she's running." Nabiki arched  
an eyebrow as she looked at the sorceress, "Better not use so much makeup  
there or your face will disappear. Which might be an improvement now that I  
mention it," she added with amusement.  
Natsumi was not amused. Roaring mad was closer to the mark as she  
angrily viewed the strange, confident-looking girl standing beside Twister.  
*So. This one already _has_ a claim on Twister? Not for long, I think.*  
She made a magical shooing away gesture to make this 'Nabiki' forget this  
meeting and walk away.  
Suddenly, there seemed to be a brief flash of light around Nabiki's   
neck area which startled Natsumi. The spell seemed to have failed for   
Nabiki was staring at her with some confusion.  
Knowing the significance of the gesture Natsumi had made, Twister   
decided to beat a hasty retreat while she was still surprised. "Well, it   
was nice seeing you again, but me and Nabiki have to run. Bye!" He almost   
had to drag the reluctant Nabiki away from the confrontation. Swiftly, he   
found a good secluded spot and teleported to Nabiki's apartment before   
Natsumi could follow.  
Breaking out of the shock of having a spell fail on her, Natsumi   
ran to try to catch the pair again, but could not find a trace of them. She  
didn't connect the slightly muffled bang she had heard a few seconds ago   
with the pair's disappearance.  
*Where? How?* She was getting angry again. *Not another failure!  
How did my spell fail? Everything seemed alright and then...* Natsumi saw the  
flash in her mind again. *Protected! That...that obnoxious girl is protected  
by _magic_! Where could she have got such...a...spell.* Flames fairly flashed  
before her eyes as realization came to her. *That little _witch_!! She heard  
about my interest in Twister and decided to protect that girl from me!*  
Natsumi wanted to scream in rage as she thought about her foe's cunning.  
Calming down sightly after a while, she tried to think rationally  
about her problem. *I am not succeeding with head-on attacks. I must be more  
_subtle_ in my approach against her.* Natsumi grimaced as she knew from painful  
experience that subtlety was not something she could do easily.   
*I need help, as much as it pains me to admit it.* She finally   
decided. *Now who would willingly help me put down that little witch?*

The apartment that Nabiki and Yuriko shared was quiet and peaceful at  
the moment. Yuriko was reading a textbook on the bed in her room and just   
enjoying the silence, smiling.  
BOOM!  
"EEEEK!" Yuriko screamed as the sudden, loud sound scared her from the  
state of calm she had been in.  
"Oops! Sorry, Yuriko! I guess I'd better see if I can make my   
entrances quieter," called out the voice of Twister from the main room.  
"I would say that is a wise statement," smirked the voice of Nabiki.  
Slowing her beating heart, Yuriko leaped from her bed and ran out  
to meet her friends. "You scared me half to death!" she scolded as Twister's  
face showed his embarrassment.  
"Welll... Maybe I can try teleporting the air I displace back to where  
I depart at the same time I leave. That might help." Twister chuckled at  
Yuriko's now slightly mollified expression. Both he and Nabiki sat on a  
couch and Yuriko on a chair.  
"Good!" Yuriko then giggled slightly, "That certainly does announce   
that you've come."  
Rolling her eyes, Nabiki agreed, "Yes, but the first time he did it,  
it blew me off my feet!"  
"Alright, alright! I'm just glad we got out of there before Natsumi  
recovered from her surprise and tried something else that my necklace might  
not have handled."  
Nabiki was startled, "She cast a spell at me?"  
Twister nodded, "Yup. That's why she was surprised that it failed."  
"Does _she_ know about your two selves?" Yuriko asked worriedly.  
Grimacing, Twister shook his head, "I seriously doubt it. Natsumi  
would have been trying to kill me rather than pick me up then." He considered  
the two choices, "If she had tried to _kill_ me, I would have had an easier  
time."  
_Now_ Yuriko was laughing, "She was trying to pick you up!?" The look  
of amusement on her face told the others she thought the whole thing very   
funny.  
Nabiki sighed, "You're like Ranma, Twister. You both have a tough time  
defending yourself against _that_ sort of attack." She leaned towards him  
on the couch they were sharing together, grabbed his startled head, and kissed  
him for a fairly long time before releasing him. Nabiki smiled at his stunned,  
but happy face, "I rest my case."  
"The verdict is: guilty, on all charges. I won't deny it." Snapping  
sorrowfully out of his blissful state, Twister asked Nabiki, "By the way...  
Have you been feeling those eyes still?"  
With a relieved sigh, Nabiki shook her head. "Thankfully, no." She   
fingered the diamond she wore on her neck, "This seems to be doing the trick."  
"That's good." He pursed his lips together as he thought about   
something that worried him a little. *If the crystal is preventing   
whatever it is from seeing Nabiki that means it's _magic_, but from who?  
And why?*   
"Is it Natsumi?" Yuriko threw in fearfully when she saw Twister's  
thoughtful face.  
"Unfortunately not. She didn't even know about Nabiki when the 'eyes'  
started lurking." Twister sighed, "I think I'll have to try to find out   
who _is_ doing it fairly soon. It's not nice to do something like this." He   
turned to Nabiki, "If you see or feel _anything_ strange, Nabiki, you too   
Yuriko, call me." Twister suddenly stood up and smiled. "Well, I've got to   
get back and do some homework for tomorrow. I'll try doing it 'stealth   
mode'." He grinned.  
"Okay! You'll help me again with rhymes soon, right?" Yuriko looked  
pleadingly.  
Twister laughed, "Of course I will. See you later! Oh, and thanks  
Nabiki for that timely rescue from Natsumi."  
Nabiki smiled, "It was my pleasure."  
With a sight look of concentration, Twister stood for a few seconds  
and then vanished without a sound. Yuriko and Nabiki started.  
"I don't now which is _worse_. The noise or that unnerving departure,"  
Nabiki mused and Yuriko giggled at the comment.

Twister silently appeared in his room. He could hear Yasuro tapping  
away on his keyboard in the main room.  
*It worked! Great. Now I can stop being a baby boomer.* He grinned as  
an idea came to him. *I haven't done the 'unnotice me' trick for a while.   
Should've used it on Natsumi a _long_ time ago but I grew accustomed to  
not using it anymore. Time to change that...*  
Opening his door quietly, while using his old trick, Twister walked   
across the room and peered over Yasuro's shoulder. Playing Doom again.  
Twister shook his head and waited for an appropriate time to reveal himself.  
Unfortunately, someone chose to knock on the door and Yasuro answered it.  
"Hello! Is Twister here?" Morio walked in, Hito trailing behind   
him. He spied the paused game and smirked, "Playing that _again_? You're   
gonna fry your eyeballs out if you play that much longer."  
Yasuro crossly defended himself, "It's a good game and it's _my_   
system. Why did you want Twister? He hasn't come back yet."  
Morio waved a packet in his right hand, "Too bad. I've got those  
pictures of Natsumi he wanted."  
This news caused Twister to eagerly grab the packet out of a   
now-extremely startled Morio's hand. "Thanks! I think I'll need these soon."  
"Yah!" Hito jumped backwards towards the kitchen table as he finally   
noticed Twister.   
*Oops.*  
Looking surprised and confused, Yasuro blinked, "How did you do _that_?  
I didn't even notice you come in!"  
"Never mind coming in! How did you just stand there without us noticing  
you?!" Hito exclaimed.  
*Uh, oh.* With an assumed nonchalance, Twister calmly replied,   
"Oh, just something my martial arts teacher taught me. He said extremely   
few people could do it, but he felt that I could and trained me in it."   
Twister smiled. "I do it very well. I was just practicing in preparation for   
using it to avoid Natsumi. Sorry if I startled you." The smirk belied   
the words.  
"Interesting trick." Morio appraised Twister, "_Very_ handy I would   
say. Care to go on a trip with us?" He grinned. "Ladies change rooms..."  
Hito, from his position beside the kitchen table, grinned along with Morio.  
"Sorry. I have homework to do. Nice try though." Twister waved to the  
three and went into his room.  
Morio eyed Twister's closed door thoughtfully, "Hmm. I wonder if I  
could get him to change his mind someday."  
"Not likely. I think he's pretty shy around women sometimes. At   
least that's my impression from what he's said during the conversations   
we've had." Yasuro replied fairly confidently.  
Sighing sorrowly at opportunity lost, Morio nodded his defeat, "Too  
bad. Ah, well. I've delivered my package so let's be off, Hito!" He strode  
out the door with Hito quickly following.  
Yasuro closed the door after them, shaking his head in amusement,  
"Those two..." He then went over to Twister's door and called out, "They're   
gone."   
With a sigh of relief, Twister opened the door, "Gah! I can't   
believe I did that! At least I covered myself fairly well."  
"What _did_ you do anyway?"  
"I tried a different kind of teleport and got to my room without making  
that darn boom that used to announce me." Twister smiled. "I recalled then   
that I hadn't tried an 'unnotice me' trick for a while and decided to practice   
it a bit. I really am going to use it to lose Natsumi though. _That_ part   
is definitely the truth." He shuddered. "She just met Nabiki today while  
trying to corner me. It was almost hate at first sight."  
"Did Natsumi try anything? She sounds the type."  
"Ohhh, yes. I'm not sure exactly _what_ she was trying to do, but the  
necklace I gave Nabiki managed to defeat the spell she cast." Twister   
chuckled at the memory. "Was _she_ surprised! I got me and Nabiki away   
before she recovered, thankfully." He smiled at the memory of Nabiki   
kissing him earlier.  
Something was starting to nag him though, it was a combination of  
past memory and something _else_. It was beginning to annoy him.   
*Bug me.... Oh, no!* Twister started wandering around the room and   
found that the feeling got worse only in one spot. *Oh, yes.* Twister   
sighed mentally. *Right around where Hito was standing too.*  
Yasuro was noticing Twister's sudden change in behavior and was about  
to comment when Twister held up a hand for silence.  
"I was thinking Yasuro..." Twister started talking as he bent closer  
to whatever was causing the strange feeling. "How small _can_ you make BUGS!?"  
The last word Twister, in his suddenly angry mood, said was somehow   
unconsciously amplified by his telekinesis and the result sounded like it came   
out of a megaphone. It rattled the small kitchen table which had some plastic   
flowers on top. The two occupants of the apartment heard a BOOM somewhere   
in the building. The strange feeling died satisfactorily and Twister soon   
found the electronic listening device in the flowers. It looked like it had   
burnt out from the overloading of the sensitive microphone.  
When displayed to Yasuro, he was a little peeved, "Those two...!  
Bugging _our_ place!"  
"Time to visit _theirs_ I think." With Yasuro following angrily  
behind, Twister left the apartment and checked the two privacy-breakers door.  
Apparently, they had forgotten to lock the door in their hurried walk back   
so Twister opened it and walked inside. He immediately saw Morio   
staggering a little as he emerged from another room.  
Morio looked like he had been caught in a small explosion. He had   
a slightly stunned expression on his face which had a little soot on it.   
His hair was blown back like Morio had been in a wind tunnel and applied   
styling gel. The picture would have been hilarious had Twister and  
Yasuro not been in an angry mood.  
"Something you heard didn't agree with you?" Twister eyed the   
dishevelled Morio. Sounds from the hallway outside indicated that Yasuro was   
talking to the landlord, who was likely concerned about the loud noise he   
had heard. Yasuro seemed to be mollifying the landlord's concerns pretty   
well from what Twister heard.  
"What?" Morio put a hand to his ear in stunned confusion.  
Twister sighed as he waited for Yasuro to enter. Yasuro had just   
finished with the landlord and was now standing in the doorway, staring   
at Morio and trying to decide whether to say anything quite yet.  
"Better come in. I don't think he'll be capable of rational thought  
for a few minutes." Twister commented as he gazed around the room. It was  
partly a haven for various assorted, or unsorted, electronic gadgets.   
Half of the devices Twister couldn't identify offhand. The other part was   
typical enough for the hentai pair. Big posters of almost naked ladies on   
the wall and smaller ones, that Twister avoided looking too carefully   
at, that removed the 'almost' and that could be taken off in a hurry in   
case the landlord came up.  
As Yasuro finally entered, Twister wandered into what he guessed to   
be Hito's room. It currently looked like a bomb had been detonated  
inside it. He found an unconscious Hito, looking similarly blackened as   
Morio, lying on his back, about halfway on the bed. The remains of what   
used to be a very complex-looking receiver, tape recorder, and speaker   
system, lay in the center of the blast damage. Twister pulled out the   
ninety-minute tape he found in it, which looked like it was half-full on   
one side, and made sure there were no leads going to a back-up recorder.   
Deciding that a little more damage wouldn't do much, Twister put the tape   
on the destroyed system and mentally had the tape to heat up.  
It melted most satisfactorily.  
*Well, so much for _that_. If they had done it earlier then I would  
likely have felt the same feeling and found something. Must have _just_ planted  
the sucker.* He contemplated the dormant figure of Hito. *I wonder if they'll  
remember much of what I said. The shock may have caused them to forget.*   
Twister sighed, *Unfortunately, that's wishful thinking.*  
Walking back to the main room, he asked Yasuro, "How's he doing?"  
Yasuro's anger was down a very large degree by now and he had walked   
the still-stunned Morio to a couch and laid him down on it. Yasuro looked   
down at his soot-faced friend, "Hm. Might come out of it soon. What did you   
find?"  
"One expensive-looking rig that doesn't look so expensive anymore.  
They must have been eagerly listening to what we were saying with the speakers  
jacked up loud to hear us talking. When I...ah...commented about bugs, it   
appears that the extremely _loud_, sudden signal overloaded the system, blew   
the speakers rather dramatically, and toasted the system in between them   
even further." He smirked, "The tape I found had a 'meltdown' with some help  
from me. Though I think," Twister snickered, "what probably was a minor EMP  
weapon for half a second likely fried whatever was on the tape anyway."  
"But take no chances." Yasuro regarded the now-groaning   
Morio. "I don't think I really need to say anything now. They've been   
'hoisted by their own petard' I believe the quote goes."   
"Rather well fitting too," smirked Twister before he got a slightly  
concerned look. "I hope their ears weren't damaged."  
Before Yasuro could comment, Morio groaned out, "Ohhh... Have I got  
a headache." He opened his eyes and saw the two half-angry, half-concerned  
people he had attempted to bug watching him. Morio weakly grinned. "Hi, guys."  
"Hi yourself, Morio! Why did you bug us?" Yasuro angrily said.  
A look of puzzlement came over Morio's face before understanding hit  
and his eyes grew wide. "No!" He whispered as he lifted a hand and started   
snapping his fingers. Understanding turned to panic. "I can't hear it!   
I'm deaf!"  
Twister motioned the approaching-panic Morio to look at him. Pointing  
to his mouth he slowly said, "Do your ears hurt?"  
Morio carefully watched Twister's mouth and nodded. "Yes. It feels like  
something hurts," he pointed to his ear, "inside."  
"Oh, no." Twister said involuntarily.  
Yasuro wasn't mad anymore. Now he was concerned about his   
friend, "What? Is it bad?"  
"He _may_ have a ruptured eardrum if he feels something _inside_ his  
ear hurting, but I'm not sure." Twister sorrowfully looked at Morio. "It   
_is_ likely."  
Coming to his own conclusions, Morio swallowed, "My eardrum's ruptured.  
Oh, damn. Deaf for life."  
Debating with himself for a short time while the other two were silent,  
Twister sighed and spoke slowly so Morio could read his lips, "Maybe not."  
"What? What do you mean?" Morio demanded as Yasuro looked on in   
puzzlement.  
With a half-smile, Twister reached out and firmly grasped Morio's soot  
covered hand, "You have to see it to believe it." Quickly checking that the  
door and windows prevented anybody from looking in, Twister started Healing.  
Twister had done this to himself with extreme ease without any real   
understanding of how he did it. Now that he tried Healing someone else, it was  
another matter entirely. Fortunately, it was quite simple when he had a healthy  
specimen to compare to, which was himself. Scanning Morio's head, he saw that  
the inner ear on both sides of the head had ruptured. Using TK, he mended the  
damage by comparing it with his own inner ear that he could feel as well.   
No fluid had leaked into the ear which was good. He completed the Healing by  
telling Morio's body to accelerate it's healing abilities until all possible  
damage had been repaired. It had not required much power so the blue aura  
had not appeared, but the concentration it took was mentally fatiguing so  
Twister sat down after releasing a surprised Morio's hand.  
It had taken a half-minute to do.  
Wonderingly, Morio snapped his fingers and his face brightened, "I can  
hear it now!" He looked at Twister with surprise and relief. "How did you do   
that?"  
Twister rubbed his temples, "With great suffering, I can tell   
you. I've never Healed anybody else before and I found it's a _lot_ harder."   
Sighing, he got up and started towards Hito's room, "Hito's probably the   
same, if not worse, so I'd better do him now."  
As Twister walked away, he could Yasuro calmly starting to talk, "Well,  
now that you are alright again... I can shout at you for bugging our room!"  
Yasuro finished angrily.  
Smiling, Twister missed Morio's apologetic reply as he focused his  
attention on Hito.

Chapter Thirteen  
\----------------

All four guys walked back to Twister and Yasuro's apartment as the  
one they had been in was a bad reminder to what had happened. Morio and Hito  
had cleaned up and changed clothes so that they would not mark up the furniture  
with soot. Both were sheepishly sitting on a couch. Yasuro was   
contemplating the pair from his chair at the computer and Twister leaned  
on a wall, looking slightly amused by the two hentai's discomfort.  
He spoke up. "Get more than what you were looking for?"  
Morio jumped a little. "Ah...I guess you could say that." Morio was   
trying to decide on what to say next as Hito looked down at his hands folded   
together on his lap.  
Yasuro addressed the two with some heat, "_Why_ did you decide to bug  
us anyway?"  
Mumbling, Hito said, "Morio thought you two were hiding something and  
thought it was about that red-haired girl."  
"Well, you found out _something_, all right. Not what you   
expected, but you found something." Twister had to chuckle at the two's   
predictable behavior. "If you _do_ attempt spying again, I'd try to avoid   
the possibility of something blowing the system. I know better than to   
ask you not to give up on it and since finding out that I can sense bugs   
you won't try _us_ again." Turning his head to Yasuro, Twister waved a   
hand at the seated pair, "Ease up on them. We should have known they   
would try _something_ after seeing that red-haired girl."  
With some relief, Morio saw Yasuro reluctantly nod in agreement.   
"Thanks, Twister. But do you know _why_ she was here?" Hito looked up in   
eager anticipation.  
Prepared for this, Twister had a story ready, filled with half-truths.  
"Maybe to confuse Natsumi." Seeing questioning gazes Twister explained, "Well,  
since you know I can do a few psionic tricks I might as well tell you some  
more stuff which I think you should know about." He paused to take a breath  
and continued, "Natsumi and the red-headed girl can use magic, apparently, from  
what I've discovered." Seeing Morio and Hito's disbelieving faces, Twister   
nodded and went on. "It's true. Now what's going on is that Natsumi was   
shown up a bit by the red-head in some way and is _really_ mad now.   
Natsumi had challenged the red-head to some sort of magical contest and   
lost, resulting in the state you received her in. You seeing her here was   
likely an attempt to trick Natsumi by some method." He didn't   
mention that Natsumi hadn't even _met_ the 'red-head' at the   
time. Thoughtfully, Twister added. "Oh, by the way. I'd recommend   
burning any 'souvenirs' if you took anything from Natsumi. She might   
trace them and you might not like what would happen next."  
The duo turned pale and Hito rushed out of the room in a _big_ hurry.  
Recovering some color, Morio asked, "How did you find out all this?  
This isn't exactly well-known information, I gather."  
"Nabiki's roommate is in the same magic class and when she heard   
Natsumi was after me... Well, she decided to tell us everything that had   
happened." To himself, Twister added, *I'd better tell Yuriko and Nabiki   
later about this, in case Morio looks for them and asks them anything.*  
Digesting this information, Morio sighed. "Ah, well. Sorry about the  
eavesdropping you two, but we just _had_ to know." He smiled then. "At least  
we know where to get rapid transport if we need it."  
Yasuro snorted in amusement and Twister chuckled as Morio waved   
good-bye and started to leave. Before he left, however, he turned with a   
fairly serious look on his face. "Oh, before I go... Thanks, Twister, for   
fixing our ears. I don't know what we would have done then."  
Looking a little embarrassed, Twister replied, "No problem. It was   
_partially_ my fault anyway." He raised an eyebrow. "Not by _much_, but a   
_little_ of it."  
Morio grinned at that and left.  
Waiting a few seconds to make sure Morio had gone, Twister sighed  
deeply in relief and sagged a bit. Yasuro smiled at him from the chair.  
"Quick thinking in explaining away the 'girl'." He chuckled.  
Standing up straight, Twister just shook his head in resignation.  
"Yeah. Great. Now _those_ two know _half_ of it. At least it was the better of   
the halves." He yawned. "It's gotten late and I need to sleep. Night."  
Yasuro echoed Twister as the latter left to go into his room and  
collapsed onto his bed.

Morio entered his slightly blasted apartment to see Hito cutting the  
bra they had taken from an unconscious Natsumi into little pieces. He was  
burning each small section carefully.  
"Well, considering everything that happened, I think we came out  
fairly okay." Morio mused out loud.  
Hito raised his head and stopped burning pieces to stare at Morio  
incredulously. "Okay? We almost lose our hearing, might possibly be targeted  
by an angry junior witch, and _I_," Hito pointed towards his blasted room,  
"lost a pretty expensive electronics setup." He shook his head, "I think   
going after that particular red-head is a bad idea, Morio."  
"Hmm. I'm tempted to give up too." Morio paused, and then grinned,  
"But not without one last try." Hito groaned as Morio resolutely went on.   
"Not when we've finally tracked her to her classroom. I've got _just_   
the trick to try too. It's subtle and invisible."  
"Huh? What are you talking about?" Hito was puzzled.  
Walking over to a personal storage container, Morio started searching  
for something while he explained to Hito. "A few years ago, me and another  
friend of mine, a fellow hentai, started talking and came up with this  
idea. He was interested in biology, female mainly, and was explaining how  
animals of either sex attracted each other by means of a complex chemicals  
called 'pheromones'. These aromatic scents are an irresistible lure for most  
species that use them."  
Now Hito was getting interested, "And what did you two do?"  
Morio's voice smirked though the deep hole he was digging through the   
objects of the container. "I asked him if it were possible to create something  
like that for humans. He thought about it, and said it was likely. With that  
positive thought, I attempted to create something to attract the female of  
_our_ species, with help from my friend, of course. After many failures, we  
finally got a _very_ nice chemical scent that worked _quite_ nicely. It didn't  
last long in the air, but while it did we were irresistible. Only a few   
unforeseen complications made us stop."  
"Which were?" Hito was fascinated by the story.  
"_Every_ girl within scent range flocked towards us. A pleasant thought  
but _very_ uncomfortable in reality. Also, when the scent wore off after a  
half-hour, the girls came back to their senses in various unclothed states and   
deduced, quite correctly, that _we_ had done something to them. It was a   
little painful. Thirdly, there were their _boyfriends_ and other males who   
were a little annoyed by our stunt. After two tests, we decided not to use the   
scent again unless we were desperate, and _very_ sure it was safe."  
Fear forgotten, Hito was now excited by this idea. "This stuff sounds  
great!" His expression clouded, "But how can we prevent those bad things you  
mentioned from happening?"  
An exclamation of discovery announced the finding of the sought-after  
item and Morio pulled himself out to brandish a vial of a clear liquid with a  
cheerful chuckle.  
"Careful planning, my dear Hito! Careful planning!"

"Ah! Not a bad day to end the week, I must say." Twister sighed   
happily after she and Yuriko got out of the magic course the next day.   
Her companion giggled.  
"You're just happy Natsumi hasn't bothered you all day."  
"Yes, that did put me in a good mood, even though I worry about what  
she's planning _next_...as I'm _sure_ she is." Twister sighed as they walked  
down a hallway.  
Something caught Yuriko's attention just then. "Is that guy signaling  
_us_?"  
Twister followed her gaze and spotted Hito in a doorway, trying   
to be subtle about catching their attention. She sighed and started leading   
the two of them towards Hito. "I think so. Remember that pair of guys I   
mentioned before class today?"   
Comprehension was starting to show in Yuriko's eyes as they stopped  
in front of the doorway the nervous Hito was standing in. He started to   
talk to Twister.  
"Uh, hi. My name's Hito. I don't know if you remember me, but I   
was one of the guys who took that other girl to the nurse's office two   
days ago."  
Pretending to recall, Twister smiled at him, "Oh, right! I remember  
now! Why did you call us over, and so nervously?"  
"Um. It's something we found out about that girl." Hito quickly scanned  
the hallway as if looking out for somebody. "Could we talk in the room? My  
friend is in here too. We don't want anybody listening in to our conversation."  
Twister and Yuriko looked at each other and shrugged. With a little  
bit of worry about what could be bothering Hito, Twister said, "Sure. You  
might as well come in too, Yuriko."  
With some relief, Hito fully opened the door and let the two girls into  
the empty classroom. Cautiously, he locked the door so they wouldn't be   
disturbed. While he was facing the door, Hito quickly opened a small capsule  
and applied the contents on his face and neck. Putting the capsule away,  
he turned around to look at the girls again. The starting reactions that the  
girls were beginning to display brought credence to Morio's claims about the  
chemical which Morio had applied to himself a few minutes ago to let the scent   
fill the room. Hito smiled at the two cameras that they had brought, with   
the expectation that both rolls of film would be used up.  
Smiling, Morio started the conversation, "Ah. Thanks for   
coming in. The reason we wanted to talk is that we learned a few...things   
about that girl we carried to the nurse."  
"What things would that be?" Twister questioned as she looked around  
the classroom with a puzzling feeling of restlessness. Also, there was   
this funny odor in the room that she couldn't remember ever smelling   
before in her life. It wasn't unpleasant, it was just...odd. Yuriko   
looked just as restless too, increasing her puzzlement.  
Waving his hand carelessly, Morio answered her query, "Oh, that she   
has some abilities that might make it hard for us if she found out that _we_  
carried her. After all, she might have some odd notions about what we did   
during the trip." He smiled as saw the scent starting to take effect.  
Interrupting suddenly, Yuriko spoke with an intent look at a smiling,  
but now nervous again Hito, "Do you find it _hot_ in here, Itazuka?" She was  
starting to pick at the blouse she was wearing with her fingers and licking  
her lips slightly.  
"Uh...just a little, Yuriko. Do you guys find it hot?" Morio's face  
was starting to captivate Twister as she indeed noticed that it _did_ seem  
rather warm in the room. That odd smell was _really_ noticeable now. She lowered  
her gaze to Morio's torso. *Hm. I wonder what he would look like with that   
shirt off...*   
_That_ thought brought her crashing suddenly to her senses.  
*_What_ am I _thinking_?!? Why am I feeling this strange attraction for  
Morio? Yuriko is also acting strange towards _Hito_. Is it something in   
the room?* The answer flashed though her mind, *That _smell_! It _must_   
be some sort of chemical, and just _who_ is very good at that sort of thing?   
Morio.* A bit of anger fought off the effects of the chemical, buying some  
time to act on the knowledge. *Well, gentlemen, I think we've had enough   
of _attraction_. Let's try _repulsion_ now...* Yuriko was making motions to   
remove her blouse so Morio and Hito's attention was all on the starting   
striptease act when Twister whispered out a rhyme.

"The emotion love has been abused,  
So let another now be accused,  
Hate to love and love to hate,  
Change effects upon this bait."

Almost immediately after the spell was finished, Yuriko froze halfway  
in the act of taking off her blouse. Looking at Hito with revulsion now, she  
quickly jerked the garment back into place and stared with loathing at the  
disappointed Hito.  
Twister was not immune to the new affects of the scent and regarded  
the startled Morio with some contempt. "So, you're too helpless to defend  
_yourselves_, huh?"  
"N-no," Morio started backing up from the angrily advancing Twister,  
totally confused, "We just thought..."  
"Hah! That's a surprise!" The herding Twister was attempting on Morio  
was successful and he now stood by a totally frightened Hito, who was   
paralyzed with fear from the truly _unnerving_ look of obvious hatred  
given by the normally cheerful Yuriko.   
Barely keeping herself in check, Twister smiled a most wicked smile  
and raised her hands, "Shall we _try_ some of those abilities you mentioned?  
Hmmmmm?" That last was a cruel purr.  
Hito broke out of his fear, unlocked the door, and both he and Morio  
ran in a panic outside.  
Lowering her hands with a malicious chuckle, Twister turned to the  
still furious Yuriko. "We'd better get out of this room before we _really_  
do something. That scent lure I changed is _potent_ stuff, even reversed."  
That brought Yuriko back, reluctantly, from her fury. "You mean   
it was a _chemical_ that made me feel that...other way _first_ and now   
_this_ way?" She looked ready to murder the two fled hentai.  
Dragging Yuriko out of the room, Twister nodded, "Yup. I had to reverse  
it quick before I went under too. My resistance is understandable, but I   
_still_ almost fell for it. Like I said, potent stuff."  
Once out of the scent-filled room, Yuriko immediately started to become  
her old self again. She blushed, "Did I really start to...?"  
Smiling, Twister nodded, "Darn near came close myself. Born male or   
not, that stuff sure has an effect on the female body." She smiled at a   
commotion at the far end of the hallway. "They must have put it on   
_themselves_ and since I _reversed_ its _very_ strong effect..." She smirked.  
Yuriko put a hand to her mouth as she started laughing, "You don't  
mean..." Sounds of anguish echoed down the hallway.  
"Uh, huh. Until that stuff wears off, every female within sniffing  
range of them is going to want to pound the stuffing out of them." Considering  
for a minute, Twister nodded to herself. "I'd better leave and try to see if  
they have more of that stuff in their apartment. That is _not_ a good thing  
for _those_ two to have."  
Blushing again, Yuriko fiercely nodded her head. "_No_. Definitely  
not." She sighed, "Nabiki isn't going to believe this."  
"She should, and if she doesn't, we can give _her_ a whiff." Twister  
paused at that thought, "Gah. That might be good or bad. I'm not sure. Oh,   
well. Gotta run." She waved good-bye at a freshly giggling Yuriko and left  
quickly.

*Ah! I've got you _now_, you half-cyborg demon lord!* Yasuro   
gleefully thought to himself as he dodged another volley of missiles from   
said game monster. He had finally gotten to the final level in the second   
part of Doom at the highest difficulty and was almost dead, but he _knew_   
the boss monster would soon be toast. His concentration was minimally   
disrupted by Twister's return to the apartment, but that didn't worry him   
since Twister obviously knew better than to distract him by speaking.  
Suddenly, a final bazooka blast made the boss keel over.  
"YES!" The usually calm Yasuro whooped with joy and raised both hands  
with the victory sign.  
Twister was smiling behind him. "Got him did you? Good job." He   
fiddled with a vial filled with a clear liquid.  
This caused Yasuro to stop his rejoicing and regard the vial with a  
still happy eye. "What's _that_ you've got?"  
With a wry tone, Twister answered him, "_This_ was Morio's attempt to  
get the red-head on film in a...uh...revealing position." Yasuro's raised   
eyebrows prompted further explanation. "I think it's some kind of pheromone  
attractant that only works on females. It's...um...rather effective, but   
fortunately I was able to smell it for some reason and I countered it's   
effects in time." He rubbed the back of his head as he went on, "I didn't  
want Morio to keep _this_ stuff around so I 'ported in and sniffed around  
their place while opening vials to find the rest of the stuff. I found it,  
thankfully."  
Whistling in amazement, Yasuro said, "Hard to believe that stuff is  
_that_ potent."  
"Oh, it _is_," Twister smirked. "I countered it by _reversing_ it's  
effects so you'll be able to tell how well it works by the number of injuries  
those two have when they stagger back."  
Yasuro laughed out loud at that. "Fitting. Nasty, but fitting."  
"It was the first thing that came to mind. I didn't realize what would  
happen when they left the room after I cast the spell." Twister shrugged as  
he glanced at a paper Yasuro had bought that day. His attention was caught  
by a photo in the front page of the newspaper. In his startlement, he spoke  
out loud as he grabbed the paper. "What the? What's this?"  
"Oh, the photo? That's to do with an article about some valuable piece  
of art being stolen from a collector's place." Yasuro stood up and looked at  
the picture again as Twister read said article. "It sure is a nice work of art.   
You'd almost believe that was a real dragon. The only funny thing about the   
theft was that _it_ was the only thing taken. Nothing else."  
Reading the article, Twister spoke out loud, "It says: 'The object was  
made recently by a mysterious artist of remarkable ability. It can be   
identified by this picture and by the artist's signature, a tornado-like  
image on the right foreleg...'" He stopped reading with a sigh and dropped the  
paper. "Well, _that_ confirms it." Twister sighed again and sat down on the  
couch contemplating something. "Why do I have a bad feeling about this?"  
"What's the matter? It's just some stolen artwork."  
"I guess it _is_ nothing." Twister stood up. "I'd better put that   
stuff away before the pounded pair return." That said, he went into his room.  
Picking up the paper when Twister had left, Yasuro re-read the section  
Twister had spoken out loud. *'A tornado-like image'? Tornado...* A sudden   
thought struck him. *Or a Twister?? Must be. Now why...?* He chuckled a bit.   
*At least I know why it looked so life-like. With that TK of his he likely   
didn't _use_ fingers to make it. Much better than any tools I would guess.*   
Yasuro gazed off into the distance as he pondered this. *I wonder why he   
seemed disturbed. _He_ likely doesn't know either, I bet.* The sounds  
of weak groaning outside in the hallway stopped his train of thought and  
he grinned as he recognized the voices of Morio and Hito.   
*Yes, I guess that stuff _was_ potent.*

In a vast, darkened warehouse, (where else?) black robed figures   
were gazing at an object on a pedestal. They were gathered in a circle   
around it. One in particular, who had a much finer made robe, was   
standing in front of the object in question.  
It was the stolen dragon statue that had caused Twister a little  
distress before. When he had started this particular statue, Twister had   
decided that, since it would be the last he made, _this_ one would be  
extra-special, and it showed. The statue practically breathed with life   
for all that it was immobile. Scales gleamed when small holes in the   
warehouse roof shone sunlight upon them. The entire body seemed ready to   
stand up and reign regally over the poor mortals who looked upon it. And   
the eyes... You could not look at them for long before fearfully turning   
away. Impressive it was and Twister had been _very_ happy with the results.  
After examining the statue minutely for ten minutes, the   
apparent leader of the group stood up with great satisfaction.  
"Perfect! This will do excellently for the ritual! You have done   
well, my followers." The robed ones around him hissed with pleasure. "In   
one week, the time will be right and we can begin." His gaze traveled   
over seven particular robed ones. "Have you selected the Seven yet?"  
Six hissing voices replied the affirmative while the seventh stirred  
restlessly in worry. The leader noticed this and was angry.  
"Why have you not yet!? We _cannot_ delay this!" He shouted this out   
as his followers drew back a little in fear.  
The seventh robe haltingly replied, "I _had_ ssselected one. Now,  
however, sshe sseemss to elude my magical ssight." The voice within the   
shadowed hood was nervous as it went on. "Sshe wass perfect! I do not know  
what to do now."  
Visibly holding back anger, the leader questioned the seventh, "Does  
she live with anyone?" A nod. "Did you notice any Power about that one?"  
Another nod. "Powerful?" This time a negative response. "Has anyone _else_   
visited her home?"  
"There wass one who sseemed _very_ powerful, but she did not look   
very experienced sso I took no notice of her."  
"Idiot! _She_ was likely the one who has given the chosen one   
protection from your eyes." Pausing to think, the leader went on. "We   
have no time to look for another. We _must_ have her. When the time comes,   
_we_ shall go to collect her. No young magic-user will be able to   
keep _me_ away from my goal."   
A slow, evil laugh oozed out from the leader's hood.

Chapter Fourteen  
\----------------

On Saturday, Twister teleported to the Tendo dojo for another lesson  
from Ranma. Nabiki was too busy with homework and meeting new friends to   
join him this weekend, but she was planning to go back on the next weekend  
or the one after that.   
Twister had spent a fair amount of time the day before going over  
all that he had been taught. In male form, since a perfect memory helped a   
lot. Twister also went over that little battle with the physical   
education group. As a result of all this, he was a little improved than   
where he had been the week before, which surprised Ranma slightly.  
Twister managed to get a few good hits in before quitting and   
Ranma-chan looked impressed.  
"What did you do? Practice every day?"  
"No. I just tried going over everything you have taught me." Twister  
was in female form as she was accustomed to practicing with it. She had not  
told Ranma-chan about the little fight she had in male form since Twister was  
still a little uncertain about fighting like that.  
"It works." Ranma-chan chuckled, "At least we didn't destroy the   
practice room this time."  
"Do you mind if I stay around for another lesson Sunday?"  
"What's the rush? At the rate you're going, it'll only take a few  
more sessions before I have to start you on 'special' moves. _Then_ these  
fights will get really interesting."  
Looking a little worried, Twister sighed, "It's just that I feel like  
I'm going to _need_ the extra practice. Ah, well, it's likely nothing."  
Not terribly convinced, Ranma-chan let it go. "All right."  
With more cheer, Twister smiled, "Anyway, I had the thought of going  
to Shampoo's restaurant after I change. I'm hoping the noodles there will   
restore my faith in pasta. Care to join me?" She grinned.  
Ranma-chan winced and looked sourly at her, "I'd better stay here,  
thanks. Akane's still steamed. Stupid tomboy."  
Twister was curious about, but decided she really didn't want to know  
right now.

A bell called out the entrance of a new customer and Shampoo looked  
up eagerly. She was disappointed that it wasn't Ranma, but still happy to   
see someone she thought of as a friend. Despite the fact she had wanted   
to kill him for a while.  
"Twister! Shampoo happy to see!"  
He smiled back at Shampoo. "Me too. It's been a while." Twister sat  
at a table. "Care to take an order? I decided to have something here since I  
didn't recall ever eating here."  
Shampoo nodded. "Shampoo not recall Twister do so. What like?"  
Smiling, Twister told her what he wanted and she quickly walked away  
into the back. He looked around, but failed to see Mousse anywhere.  
*Hm. I guess he can't be in here _all_ the time.*  
A delicious smell drew Twister's attention and he saw Shampoo come out  
with a steaming bowl of noodles. The aroma dispelled any revulsion he might  
have felt towards the great-looking pasta dish. She placed it in front of him  
and smiled as he slowly and delightfully finished the meal.   
Twister sighed happily. "Ahhh. My condition against noodles is   
cured."  
"Condition?" Shampoo puzzledly asked.  
"Long story." He held up an empty glass that was on his table and  
smiled. "Could you get me some water, please?"  
Still puzzled, she nodded, left for the kitchen, and returned with   
a big pitcher of ice water.   
As Shampoo poured, Mousse suddenly rushed in crying Shampoo's name.  
He quickly ran past her, bumping her in the process, and hugged a startled  
customer who was about to leave. This resulted in Mousse receiving a slap  
and an angry retort from the girl.  
With a little contempt, Shampoo addressed Mousse, "Should wear   
glasses, stupid duck-boy."  
Mousse did so and spied who was sitting near where Shampoo was   
standing. "Ranma! You dare come near my future bride!" Shampoo started and   
looked at where she had accidentally spilled cold water from her pitcher.  
Before Mousse could attack, the now-female Twister calmly said, "Try  
it and I'll drag you through town again for _another_ three hours, Mousse."  
Seeing the absence of a pig-tail and hearing Twister's response,  
Mousse immediately calmed down. "Oh, it's just you, Twister."   
Shampoo was looking apologetic. "Shampoo sorry, Twister. Clumsy   
Mousse cause Shampoo to get Twister all wet..." Her voice trailed off as   
she noticed Twister's still dry looking clothing. "Clothes _not_ wet!   
How Twister do that?"  
"Just enchanted them so that a very thin layer of air protects them  
from spills and such. No biggie." Twister shrugged as she stood up. "Mind if  
I go in back for some hot water?"  
Looking envious, Shampoo agreed, "Not mind. Wish Shampoo could use  
for own clothes." An idea struck her. "Can Twister make same for Shampoo?  
Pay for meal."  
Thoughtfully, Twister pondered the question. "I don't see why not.  
I'll just enchant some salt. A tablespoon should manage _one_ set of   
clothing in a large amount of _warm_ water. After it dries, it'll work   
for about a week, or so I imagine. Just don't try more than one tablespoon  
since I think that might make it last longer." Twister thought to herself  
about the spell, *The Professor described this sort of one-shot enchantment  
recently in class so the salt itself should keep the magic, until used of   
course.*   
Excitedly, Shampoo led Twister to the back and found a fair bit of  
salt to her to enchant. That done, Twister used some hot water and changed  
back. With a happy good-bye, Shampoo waved to Twister as he left.   
She smiled. "Now Shampoo not worry about clothes in kitchen."  
Sitting at a table, Mousse had heard their conversation about the  
spell and got an idea. He sneaked into the kitchen with a small smile.  
About an hour later, Mousse returned to the restaurant.  
Wearing his glasses for once, he called out, "Shampoo! I will   
kill Ranma today and then there will be no obstacle between you and I!"  
Furious, because this was the second time today Mousse had barged in  
like this, Shampoo came out with a pitcher of water. "Shampoo not think  
so, duck-boy!" She swiftly threw the icy contents at the confident Mousse and  
splashed him.  
No effect.  
Smiling now, Mousse reaffirmed his promise, "I now have the means to  
do so! I will be back soon!" He left the store and was out of sight when   
Shampoo ran out to find him.  
She was shocked at the lack of success of the cold water. *Now how  
did Mousse do _that_?* Thinking back, she tried to remember what Mousse could  
have done to prevent the change from happening.   
Then it hit her.   
*Mousse's clothes were not _wet_!* Shampoo mentally kicked herself.  
*Of course. Mousse was here when I asked Twister for that enchantment.*   
Rushing to the back she saw that a third of the enchanted salt had been   
taken. *Must have used it all to take a bath.* Eyes narrowing, Shampoo   
started getting angry.  
*So Mousse stole from me? Two can play the same game.*

Ranma and Twister were sitting by the pond, just talking.  
"So Akane's peeved at you now?"  
Embarrassed, Ranma looked away, "Now why should I care what that tomboy  
thinks of me?"  
Twister wasn't convinced, "Riiight. Sure. I believe you." *NOT!* "How   
mad is she?"  
"Pretty mad." Ranma sighed as he threw a small stone into the pond.  
"I checked at her window and she threw her desk at me without a word."  
"Desk?! How...?" Twister shook his head over geometric impossibilities.   
"Never mind. Hm. I would say that's pretty mad." He saw Ranma's depressed face.   
"You know... For someone you keep saying you don't like, you sure don't look   
too happy about it."  
Starting to deny it, Ranma was interrupted by a voice rapidly approaching  
them.  
"RANMA! Prepare to meet your doom!"  
Both Ranma and Twister leaped into the air as various bladed  
projectiles landed in the general area where they had been.   
"Yow! Watch it, Mousse!" Twister exclaimed as he landed near the   
house. "_Must_ you play with sharp objects? And why did you try to hit   
_both_ of us?!"  
Ignoring Twister, Mousse focused his attention on Ranma, who landed  
near the pond's opposite edge.   
"Now I will finally defeat you, Saotome!"  
Ranma was not impressed. "Give it a rest, Mousse! How many times must  
you keep doing this?"  
"If destroying you is the only way to make Shampoo forget you, then  
I will do what I must."  
As Mousse and Ranma did the customary exchanging of various assorted  
insults prior to fighting, Twister casually leaned on the side of   
the house.  
*This is fun. I can see it now. '_See_ the fight of the century!  
_Watch_ as the combatants try to pound the other into a pulp. _Hear_ the   
endless chatter before the fight even begins!' Jeez, I wonder if they've  
memorized this stuff by now.*  
The racket by the pond was now catching the interest of Genma and  
Soun, who finally looked up from their game of Go to watch the coming fight.  
Also, while Kasumi stayed in the kitchen, Akane finally came down to   
reluctantly see what was going on with Ranma.  
As she came up to stand by Twister, she asked, "What's with Mousse,   
Twister?"   
"Dunno. He seems pretty confident for some reason."  
Ranma and Mousse apparently had finished the preliminaries and Ranma  
waited for Mousse to make the first move. Surprisingly, Mousse jumped to  
clear the pond towards Ranma.   
Ranma jumped to counter him, *What's he doing? Isn't he worried that  
he'll get wet and change?* When they were about to collide, Ranma kicked out  
at Mousse. In another surprising move, Mousse merely dodged and grabbed   
Ranma's leg. They collided and momentum to carry them to safety died.  
Both dropped into the pond with a splash.  
Ranma-chan came up sputtering and looked around to shout at  
Mousse-duck. Nothing was floating on the pond though. She was puzzled.  
*Where'd he go?*   
A disturbance in the water before her caught her attention. Slowly,  
before everybody's astonished eyes, a still-human Mousse stood up from the  
pond and smiled.  
"Now you will truly pay, Saotome!" He leaped from the pond towards  
Ranma-chan who scrambled out of the way, too surprised to do much.  
"How did Mousse manage not to change?" Akane got out in her shock.   
Getting no response, she looked at Twister and got another surprise. He   
was pale and staring at Mousse.  
"Dry. Still dry. Oh, no." Twister was muttering. "That idiot."  
Akane looked at Mousse again and saw that Twister was right. Even  
after being dipped in the pond, Mousse was still completely dry.   
*What on Earth?*  
Meanwhile, Ranma-chan was really starting to get pounded because   
she was still surprised over Mousse not changing into a duck, distracting   
her. The kicks she _did_ land on Mousse didn't seem to effect him quite as   
much as they used to either. This surprised Mousse a little as well, but he   
decided to take advantage of the fact as he continued his assault.  
Worriedly, Akane watched. "Ranma's blows don't seem to affecting   
Mousse as much anymore."  
Groaning, Twister explained what must have happened, "Akane, I was at  
Shampoo's today to try the noodles there. When Shampoo saw my water and   
stain-proof clothes, she asked if I could make something to protect her own  
because of the kitchen. I agreed." He sighed. "All it does is protect anything  
totally immersed in the solution with a thin film of air. Mousse was there  
at the time and must have taken some of the stuff I enchanted. Also, the  
reason the blows aren't affecting him as much is that the film of air is   
cushioning him slightly."  
With growing horror, Akane heard this story, "So Ranma is at a   
disadvantage right now! What should we do?"  
"MOUSSE!"  
Raising his eyebrows, Twister remarked, "I think the injured party  
who just arrived will save Ranma's bacon." He saw Shampoo biking rapidly   
towards the two splashing fighters. "After all, it _was_ intended for her   
clothes."  
A thrown mace that hit Mousse in the head got his attention and   
distracted him enough for a battered Ranma-chan to kick him to the other   
side of the pond. Coming back up, Mousse faced an angry Shampoo who   
jumped off her bike and leaped into the pond. She too didn't change.  
"Uh, oh. She's on the rampage." Twister fairly accurately stated as  
Shampoo's face revealed her anger.  
From the Go table, Soun calmly said, "It's a good thing the fish are  
not in the pond right now."  
Genma nodded, "Indeed."  
"Ranma nearly gets killed and all you can think about are fish?!"  
Akane shouted to the seated pair.  
"They _are_ hard to replace." Soun shrugged.  
Mt. Akane was ready to blow when Twister chuckled, "No fish? Hmm.  
I think it's time to stir the pot then." Turning, she saw Twister intently   
looking at the pond.   
Akane was puzzled, "Twister, you can't affect water. Remember?"  
"Who said anything about the water? It's the _rocks_ I'm heating up  
in a hurry." Mist was starting to form above the pond as a tired  
Ranma-chan, and an angry Shampoo fighting a reluctant Mousse, waded in it.  
Groggily, Ranma-chan wondered at the change of temperature in the  
water. *It is just me or is the water getting warmer?* Forming mist helped  
bring Ranma-chan to full awareness. *It is! But...* She saw a concerned Akane  
and a staring Twister and realized what was going on. *He's heating the water  
somehow! Yes!* Ranma-chan dived under the water when it started feeling warm.  
Shielded by their films of air, Shampoo and Mousse didn't really notice  
the water temperature difference. Neither had really injured the other just  
yet because of the dragging effect of the water and their thin shields of air.  
With a SWOOSH, Ranma in male form suddenly shot up right beside a   
startled Mousse and put all his remaining strength into a surprise   
punch. Mousse was knocked out of the water and landed flat on his back,   
dazed.  
Sighing with relief, Ranma collapsed on the edge of the pond and  
lay there breathing heavily. Twister, Akane, and Shampoo rushed up to see  
if he was okay.  
Shampoo looked embarrassed, "Sorry, Twister. Mousse stole clothing  
protector when I not looking. Bad for Ranma."  
"Ranma? Are you okay?" Akane kneeled over an eyes-closed Ranma.  
He weakly opened his eyes, "I'm okay. Just tired. What's with Mousse  
anyway?" He shakily sat up. "And Shampoo for that matter."  
"My fault. I made something to help save Shampoo's clothes from   
kitchen accidents, but Mousse found another use for it." He saw Shampoo's  
still sad face, "Don't worry about it. In fact, I'm sorry to say, you and   
Mousse have already paid a fairly high price. How much did you use on   
yourself?"  
"Two teaspoons. One for clothes and one for Shampoo." She looked  
puzzled now. "Mousse used much more than that, Shampoo think."  
Regaining his strength, Mousse stood up, "What are you talking about?  
I see no price for this!"  
With a smirk, Twister walked over to face an uncomprehending Mousse.  
"Ah, but there _is_ Mousse. Shampoo's second skin will last a week. Yours...  
Much longer depending on how much you used. I _did_ mention something   
about it lasting longer if you used more." He walked back to stand by a now  
upright Ranma, who had with Akane supporting him. "The _least_ is that the   
skin feels a little...confining as I tried a much shorter lasting   
enchantment once. Too uncomfortable for me and it wouldn't work on this   
form anyway. Another, is the slipperiness of the air skin. Shampoo must   
have had a hard time coming here on her bike with her mace and _you_,   
Mousse, couldn't aim your weapons very well for the same reason. I'm   
amazed Shampoo managed to hit you with her mace. You both must`ve found   
everything slightly slippery." Shampoo and Mousse reluctantly nodded at   
that truth.   
Taking a deep breath, Twister broke the bad news, "The _worst_ part  
is that _water_ can't touch you!" Everybody looked confused as Twister  
explained, "It's _fine_ for a day or two on humans, but this spell was for  
_clothes_! YOU CAN'T CLEAN YOURSELVES OFF!" Comprehension dawned on everyone  
as Mousse and Shampoo started to look horrified, "After two or three days,  
you two will...um...be a little noticeable. Shampoo will only have to deal  
with it about four or five days. _You_, however, Mousse, will have to deal  
with it a lot longer than that. Maybe two weeks or more. I'm not sure."  
"Can Twister not disenchant?" Shampoo looked desperate.  
He shook his head, "I tried that once on a diamond. I disenchanted it  
all right. Unfortunately, I also _disintegrated_ it too. I'm still new   
at this."  
Mousse took the news quietly before replying, "I see. Then I will  
train outside town as best I can until this spell wears off. I am sorry   
to have stolen your spell from Shampoo, Twister. _But_, I will be back   
to be with her once it has." He abruptly turned around and walked away   
out of sight.  
"Sorry, Shampoo." Twister apologized.  
Sighing, Shampoo shrugged, "Is price must pay for carelessness.  
Besides," Shampoo added with an imp-like gleam in her eye, "Shampoo think   
likely great-grandmother can disenchant. Too bad Mousse leave before   
Shampoo think about it." She smiled a little wickedly.   
"True. Cologne might be able to do that, but I _will_ make some new   
stuff that will only work on clothes. I should have put _some_ thought   
into that first spell."  
"Shampoo thank Twister. Now..." A implike gleam shone in Shampoo's  
eyes as she looked at a recovering Ranma. "Shampoo get thanks from Ranma."  
Rushing up before Akane could react, Shampoo hugged Ranma and kissed him.  
Twister held back Akane with a smile and whispered, "Wait..."  
Shampoo looked like she was in bliss, but awareness came quickly as  
she realized something with horror. Releasing Ranma, she ran to the bike,  
carefully got on, and biked away, leaving a laughing Twister and a puzzled  
Akane and Ranma behind.  
Confused, Akane asked Twister, "What happened to Shampoo? That wasn't  
what I expected her to act like."  
"Remember that film of air?" Twister got out, "She couldn't feel   
Ranma's lips _at all_. Just the pressure of them. Must have felt like   
kissing a greased pole." He continued laughing.  
Nodding, Ranma agreed, "That's pretty close. I could hardly feel much  
though it."  
"So Shampoo can't kiss Ranma now." Akane smiled.  
"Yup. Ah, well. I'll have to think a bit more about my spells now."  
"I don't mind." said a now widely-smiling Akane. "She needed _something_  
to happen to her after _last_ time."  
"Ah! So _that's_ why you were mad. Well, what goes around comes   
around." He viewed Ranma carefully, "Almost feeling human?"  
Nodding, Ranma managed to start walking towards the house. "I'm okay  
now."  
With a small tap, Akane hit Ranma and he fell over. "Okay, huh?"  
She said sarcastically.  
"I _would_ be if a certain tomboy would stop doing that!"  
Twister put a hand on Akane's shoulder to prevent her retort,   
"Let's get the helpless invalid to bed, hmm? There you two can rant and   
rave at each other in the privacy a room and not disturb the players over   
there." He gestured at Genma and Soun.  
"Thank you, Twister. That's very considerate of you." Genma said from  
his contemplation of the Go game and Soun nodded.  
Rolling his eyes, Twister got Ranma back up and he and Akane got him  
moving. The two were glaring at their fathers as they were guided by Twister  
upstairs. They got to the room and carefully set down Ranma. Quickly, before   
either could react, Twister did a silent teleport and came back just as   
quickly with a small device. With a slight smile, he pressed the play   
button on the tape player and shouting voices came out of the device.  
"Pervert!"  
"Tomboy!"  
"Peeping Tom!"  
And so on...  
The voices were obviously Twister and Nabiki's.   
Seeing Akane and Ranma's outraged faces, Twister grinned and explained.  
"Nabiki and I thought that it might be easier for you two if we did a   
substitute recording argument for you two to play. _That_ eliminates a   
lot of the effort, don't you think? See ya!" He teleported to the guest room   
in a hurry.  
Laughing.

Sunday rolled around and Ranma appeared okay enough to practice with  
Twister. He and Akane seemed pretty quiet today compared to yesterday's  
hate-fest. Apparently the tape recording worked like he and Nabiki had planned.  
The two's constant and exactly the same arguments _were_ a little   
repetitive. Must have gotten it through their heads. Finally. And maybe   
something else...  
After practice, Ranma-chan and Twister just sat in the training room,  
resting till Ranma-chan got enough energy to leave the room.  
She sighed and rubbed a bruise from the fight with Mousse, "I guess   
college is a lot calmer than around here. Right, Twister?" The helpless   
laughter this provoked from Twister surprised her. "I guess not."  
"Whoo!" Twister calmed down. "Anything _but_! Whatever you got Ranma,  
I think I caught it. 'Dull' it is not." She proceeded to describe the various  
events that had happened to her since getting to college. Twister concluded  
with, "I think the most unnerving thing was the attempt those two hentai  
pulled to try to get pictures of me undressed. If I hadn't smelled the chemical  
I wouldn't have been able to counter it in time. Born male or not."  
"You're pulling my leg." said a disbelieving Ranma-chan.  
"Aha! I knew you wouldn't believe it! I've have to bring the vial   
sometime to prove it. It's _potent_. Even _you_ would be affected. I know _I_  
would have soon, knowing or not."  
Ranma-chan snorted. "Hmp. That I'd like to see."   
Twister just smiled.  
Around midday, Twister left back for college after saying his   
good-byes. He was getting better at doing silent teleports and could do them  
almost as fast as the normal ones he had done before.  
Yasuro looked around from his computer screen when he heard Twister's  
door open. "Have fun visiting?"  
"A fair bit. Some excitement happened, but that's the usual there."  
Straight-faced, Yasuro turned back to his computer. "Not at all like   
here, of course."  
He got a cushion in the head for that one.

Chapter Fifteen  
\---------------

Another school day passed and on Tuesday, Natsumi was still trying  
to think of who could help her with her problems. She was passing though the  
hallways when she spied Takaya, identifiable by his monk's robe, sitting in the  
library by himself, seemingly just thinking. Suddenly, he seemed like the  
perfect person to help her if he wanted to.  
She took a deep breath and started walking towards him. *He just   
might. It depends on what exactly he sees in that Itazuka.* Natsumi sat   
down by the silent figure.  
This time Takaya was the one startled, instead of the other way   
around. He had been deep in thought, trying to find a way to get the   
red-head to marry him. Not very many workable ideas had come to mind. He   
looked to see who wished his attention and smiled at the sight of Natsumi.  
"Ah, Natsumi. What can I do for you?" She appeared a little nervous  
for some reason.  
"Takaya... I was wondering if you could help me with a few troubles  
I've been having."  
Inwardly, he smiled, *Hmm. An opportunity to have her owe me   
something sounds good to me. I wonder what she wants.* Then memory struck   
and he frowned. "If you want to kill the red-headed one then I'm not   
interested."  
She shook her head. "I only tried that because I was so angry. What  
I _really_ want is to teach her a lesson, but I don't think I can do it   
myself." Natsumi glanced at Takaya. "What do you see in her anyway?"  
Takaya softly laughed, "Just her Power. I want to use it as my own.  
Unfortunately, the only way to do _that_ is to have her marry me." He smiled.  
"A difficult task, I think."  
This statement opened doors of understanding about Takaya for Natsumi  
and she almost shivered. *He only wants her Power! And to think I wanted him  
to notice me... Close call, I think.* A nasty smile appeared upon Natsumi's  
face. "Why don't you help me with another problem and then I can help you with  
your own. I think tricking her into marrying you would be good enough for   
me."  
*Hmm. This sounds promising. It would heighten my chances to have   
an ally.* Takaya queried Natsumi as to what the other problem was, "Is   
this problem magical?"  
"In a way. I found this _fascinating_ boy who isn't magic-talented,  
but is very good-looking and talented in other ways. Unfortunately, it   
seems he has a girlfriend who appears to be protected, by something   
magical, against magic." She smiled widely. "If he's alone I can get him   
on my own."  
Takaya nodded, "That seems simple enough. Done then. I think that if  
we briefly get the girlfriend and find out what protects her then we should  
have no trouble 'suggesting' her to leave him." He contemplated that   
plan and then smiled, "Yes, that should do. I would say Friday night would   
be a good time."  
Natsumi nodded. "Of course. We should be ready by then and after   
that... we can focus on Itazuka."  
They both slowly smiled at each other.

Three more days passed and Twister was starting to become a little  
nervous. Not a peep had come up about Natsumi or, less importantly, Takaya,  
with whom he didn't think he had seen the last of.   
Still, he hadn't wasted the week. Prof. Miyabi's class _was_ helping  
him by giving him new ideas to expand upon and improve in. There was a _long_  
way to go, but he was much further along than anyone in the rest of the   
class. Yuriko was not the only one who asked him for help now and they   
sometimes got together to discuss topics Miyabi mentioned in class. In   
other classes, Twister wasn't worried at all since his perfect memory   
gave him a large advantage, though he still attended them.   
Magic wasn't so easy since it was more art than merely memorizing   
topics. He'd had experience in art too and it showed. So did his sense of humor  
sometimes, which lightened the mood frequently.   
There were _many_ humorous and time killing ways to use magic.  
Friday was a free day and he went home to the apartment to get ready  
to go out on a true 'date' with Nabiki. She had finally gotten tired of his  
shyness to ask her and so _she_ asked _him_ out. The fact that both she  
_and_ he had been busy with homework and other things they had to do hadn't   
helped before either.   
*Heh. Definitely a woman of the sexual revolution. I guess we _have_  
been moving kinda slow. We've been together before, true, but nothing _I_   
really considered a date. _This_ will be a date.* He smiled at that thought.  
As he sorted though his clothes for something suitable, he checked to  
see how his power level was since it didn't hurt to check. He did this by   
just feeling with his psionic senses to check it, something Twister had   
figured out from curiosity.  
*Hm. Pretty high. I guess I _have_ been eating a lot to practice   
magic, but I didn't think I had stored _that_ much.* He checked a nearby   
mirror to see if he could notice it and, yes, he could. *Hmm. Must be   
more than what I had after the eating contest. I guess all those sweets   
I've had more than made up for just plain noodles. Still, I have _no_ fat   
when I'm drained. I can't believe I managed to put that much power into that   
sword. Have to try the other things I added as well. Sometime.*  
He was still going though clothes when the phone rang. Letting   
Yasuro get it, Twister continued until his roommate told him it was   
Nabiki.  
Quickly, he picked up the phone, "Yello! Twister's Torture Treats.  
How may I help you?"  
Nabiki's voice was anything _but_ amused, "Remember when you asked  
us to mention anything weird?"  
Shifting from Funny to Serious gears, Twister seriously said, "What's  
up?"  
"The dia...crystals on the necklaces are glowing continuously for some  
reason...and I'm starting to feel those eyes again."  
*Oh, shoot. Someone's intensifying _whatever_ they're doing.*   
Sounding reassuring, Twister talked back to Nabiki, "Okay, I'll just get   
dressed and 'port over there in a few minutes, alright?"  
"You'd better make it snappy, Twister. These crystals are _bright_."  
"Be there in a flash." With that he hung up and hurriedly started  
to put on some of his enchanted clothing, just in case.  
"What's up?" Yasuro inquired as he heard Twister's rushed preparations.  
"Something's going on at Nabiki's and I'm busting my butt to get   
ready."  
"Hm. Good luck."  
"I may need it." 

While the shadowy figure was not standing outside Nabiki's apartment  
building, two other figures were.  
"This is the correct place?" Takaya curiously asked his companion.  
"That's what I was told."   
"Hmm." He frowned as something brushed his mystic senses. "Odd. There  
is something happening around here."  
Natsumi looked at his worried face, "Like what?"  
"Whatever it is, it's powerful." Considering a minute, Takaya added,  
"And apparently very, very evil."  
"Oh, that's _just_ what I wanted to hear." Natsumi muttered. "I just  
want to remove a rival. Not wind up face-to-face with something out of our  
league."  
Takaya chuckled, "I, as well. Still... It _could_ be the reason the  
girl was protected by magic in the first place." He continued talking   
thoughtfully as he stared at the window of Nabiki's apartment, "However, I   
don't think the protection will last long."  
Startled, Natsumi thought about it. *Takaya could be right. Maybe it  
_wasn't_ me that she had been protected against.*  
"It just failed." Takaya commented.  
There was a moment of silence.  
A window suddenly exploded outwards towards the street with a   
loud boom. A girl's screams could be heard briefly, then silence, followed   
by another boom.  
The pair on the street stared at the open window.  
"Well, I guess that solves your problem." Takaya dryly remarked.  
Natsumi just kept staring at the window, wondering how Takaya could  
be so calm about it. As she was about to turn to him, another boom came from  
the exposed room.  
A faint voice drifted down to them. Then a shout. "Nabiki!"  
"Twister?!" Natsumi was shocked.  
"The boy you wanted? Now how did _he_ get up there?" Wondered Takaya  
with some curiosity.  
Another shout. "All right then! Time to get a big shot!" A departing  
boom sounded out again.  
Rubbing his shadowed chin, Takaya queried Natsumi, "Do you mind waiting  
another fifteen minutes? I have a feeling this is not over yet."  
Natsumi could only nod in confusion.

Twister was mad.  
Simple word, but when faced with a mad Twister you don't argue.  
This was what Prof. Miyabi did when Twister appeared in her home where  
she had summoned the demon and called out for her. She was still dressed,   
as it wasn't that late out yet, and rushed to see what Twister had come   
for. In simple, brief sentences, he described what Nabiki's apartment   
had looked like when he had arrived and, grimly showed her some spilled   
blood he had found.  
Green blood.  
Her mystic senses recoiled at the first touch of the stuff and she  
immediately started preparing herself to go with Twister to the ruined  
apartment. The evil she had sensed was very strong in magic and malice.  
With a small bag of various items quickly gathered, she announced she was   
ready and Twister teleported them back to Nabiki's apartment.  
Prof. Miyabi started to work.

Impatiently, Twister watched his professor use various items to scan  
the apartment. Finally, she sighed and stood up straight. As if about to face  
something.  
"Well?"  
"Most of it is unfamiliar, but the most powerful trace I've come   
across before. I'd hoped he would never be able to return. Apparently,   
he _has_. More's the pity."  
Not concerned with history at the moment, Twister quickly asked,  
"Can you _find_ her?"  
"I think so, if we hurry." She quickly walked towards the hallway.  
"I'll have to do it on the ground."  
Twister followed as he entertained himself about what he would do to  
whomever did the kidnapping if Nabiki or Yuriko was harmed. He was puzzled,  
however, when Miyabi stopped just outside the building.  
"Takaya! Natsumi! What are _you_ two doing here?"  
Totally calm, Takaya stepped forwards with Natsumi nervously behind  
him.  
"Just doing some research, Professor, when we saw, and sensed, some  
form of disturbance up in that apartment. Unfortunately, we didn't see   
anything. We only heard a scream." The magic duo started when Twister's eyes  
flashed blue briefly. *What on Earth?*  
Miyabi and Twister were skeptical, but the professor nodded   
anyway, "Come on then. We'll need all the help we can get if I'm right   
about this." She  
continued swiftly walking away, eyes half-closed, with the other three  
following.  
Scared, Natsumi wondered to herself, *_What_ is going _on_?*

*_What_ is going _on_?* was Nabiki's thought when she woke up in an  
uncomfortable position. She tried to speak and found that she was   
gagged. She was supported in an upright, standing position by   
bonds to her wrists and ankles. The...getup she was wearing was a   
transparent, billowy thing which wasn't exactly the warmest piece of   
clothing in the world.  
Looking around, she found she was not alone in her predicament. Six  
other young girls she recognized from her Business courses were joining her  
in waking discomfort. Not finding Yuriko at first, she saw the helpless  
young mage tied up, and gagged, slightly behind her and out of the way.  
Sardonically, she muttered to herself, *I _wonder_ what _this_ could  
be. I think my first guess would be virgin sacrifice. Lucky me if I'm right.*  
Now gazing forwards, she saw many dark robed figures gathered around  
a slightly taller, robed figure. _His_ robes were made of a black,   
higher-quality looking material with detailed designs barely visible   
on the cloth. He, in turn, was facing a familiar looking statue.  
*So _that's_ who stole it. Great, sacrificed to something Twister  
made because I asked him to. Poetic justice I guess.* Sighing to herself,  
Nabiki wearily thought on, *This stuff happens to Akane. Why _me_?   
And doesn't she usually get threatened with marriage and not sacrifice? I  
hope Twister is as punctual as Ranma. He's better at thinking things out  
fortunately.*  
The one who appeared to be the leader walked towards the now-awake   
captives and pulled off his hood. The other six gasped through their   
gags. Nabiki had seen worse, but not by much.  
The man's face seemed etched by Time into a mask of pure evil. A cruel  
sneer was permanently on his face. It was complemented by a scar on   
his face that had almost claimed his left eye and stretched down to his   
mouth. He leered at the helpless girls.  
"_You_ are the lucky ones to be chosen to be the Seven in our ritual."  
*We're all thrilled, as you can tell.* Nabiki thought sarcastically.  
"My Master will be pleased at his receptacle and you Seven will make  
Him even happier."  
*Overflowing with joy. That's us.*  
"I recommend you praying to whatever deities you worship while you  
can."  
*I think Money is out. There _is_ one thing better than that though.  
The big lug.* Now frantic in her thoughts as the leader went back to the   
statue as mentally screamed out. *TWISTER!*  
KA-BOOM!!!!  
A door on one wall of the large warehouse blew inwards in a big ball  
of fire.  
Incredulous, Nabiki thought, *Whoa. Ask and ye _shall_ receive.*  
The startled dark robes turned at the sound of the explosion and saw  
who entered their domain. An authoritative, beautiful woman strode in  
followed by a young man in a brown robe, a girl Nabiki recognized as Natsumi,  
and, as per one prayer request, a relieved Twister looking in her direction.  
The leader furiously turned around shouting, "Who _dares_ intrude..."  
His voice trailed off as his eyes found Prof. Miyabi.  
With a cold voice, she answered his question, "_I_ do, Outcast. What  
do _you_ think you are doing?"  
"Is that any way to answer an old _friend_, Miyabi?" The Outcast spat  
out viciously. "After you and those other mage friends of yours banished me  
into that prison dimension, I would _think_ you would call me by name!."  
"Your name is no longer yours, Outcast. _How_ did you escape your  
cage?" Miyabi's eyes were icy rage as the two users of magic talked to each   
other.  
The other three who had come in were doing various things as they  
were unnoticed for the moment. Takaya was scanning the unknown quantities  
of dark robes and preparing himself for the battle he _knew_ must be coming.  
Natsumi was a little scared, she had never been in a large battle. That  
man the professor was talking to looked like pure evil. Her frightened face  
caused Twister to have some pity for her.  
He whispered to her, "I'd get ready. Those two are going to be either  
duking it out or mister fight-face will send his goons out. They're not  
human, I think. Green blood. I'll free the girls." Using his 'unnotice me'   
trick he quickly started towards the captive audience of frightened   
girls. The professor and the Outcast were still spitting out insults as   
he cut Nabiki free from the bonds. They hugged briefly and Twister   
blushed as Nabiki wasn't too decent right now.  
He quickly gave the very sharp, diamond dagger he had made to Nabiki   
and whispered to her, "Get Yuriko free and cut down the others. I'll keep   
watch." As the dagger was one of his quickly made diamond creations, Twister   
had tried to stabilize it enough so that Nabiki would be able to free the   
others before it came apart. It was much smaller than his diamond swords   
so it was easy.   
The rescue efforts didn't go unnoticed, however, and the Outcast   
decided to end the reunion. He waved to his followers.  
"Kill the intruders!"   
"No you don't!" Miyabi shouted and she launched a bolt of energy   
at the Outcast. He sneered as two of his followers blocked it with their   
magic. *Damn! I'll never get him with this interference!* She prepared   
herself as the Outcast turned to the dragon, ignoring her. Miyabi would  
have to deal with the Outcast's followers before facing him.  
The dark robes rushed forwards as the Outcast started chanting at the  
dragon statue. A misty haze slowly formed above it which was slowly being   
sucked into the dragon form.  
The others were a little too busy to notice this sight, however. The  
dark robes turned out to be some form of snake-man and they all appeared to   
have magic powers. The more powerful ones struck at Miyabi while the lesser  
went towards Takaya and Natsumi. Seeing that the girls were not being attacked,  
Twister ran over to protect the overtaxed and inexperienced Natsumi. When  
he attacked with hands and feet, his 'unnotice me' trick failed and he   
startled the snake-men with his sudden appearance. This gave Natsumi time   
to blow a few away with a fire spell as he attacked the snake-men with  
fists and feet. The black robed magic-users couldn't seem to stop him   
because their magic didn't affect him at all and they sorely lacked physical  
skills.   
Takaya was hard pressed, but was doing well. Casting a protection  
spell before the attack had given him plenty of time to cast offensive   
ones. The experience gave him a chance to really cut loose and he did   
so with pleasure.  
Miyabi's battle was something to behold as she fought several attackers  
at once. Waves of darkness against walls of light. Spiral energy clashing  
with straight energy. Even in all the confusion of power, Miyabi was obviously  
winning, and was doing so more rapidly with each attacker down.  
Soon there were no more serpent-men left.  
Where _was_ one problem, however.  
"It is _done_! The binding to your new form is complete, Master!" The  
Outcast shouted with malicious glee. "Awaken!"  
"New form?" Nabiki questionably said to herself as she freed the   
third girl. "That little thing?" The statue started to enlarge and she   
rolled her eyes. "Of course. It just _has_ to grow."  
The growth grew more rapid as the statue's eyes opened to examine   
the lair the huge statue found itself in. Balancing itself as it slowly   
stopped growing, the statue gave out an amused chuckle. The statue   
Twister had made was now truly a dragon.  
"WHAT DESTRUCTION. HOW...HUMOROUS." It dismissed Miyabi, Takaya, Natsumi  
and Twister as inconsequential and spoke to the Outcast. "YOU PICKED A FINE   
FORM INDEED. NEVER HAVE I HAD A MORE FITTING FORM FOR MY DRAGON SPIRIT."   
The head swiveled towards the fear-paralyzed girls that had halfway freed   
themselves. "AH! THE CUSTOMARY SEVEN." It inhaled in bliss. "AND WITH AN   
AROMA OF WEALTH TO GO WITH THEIR YOUNG BODIES. TRULY SOMETHING TO SAVOR   
OVER." The eyes fixed on Nabiki. "I THINK I SHALL START NOW."  
*Bad mistake.* Nabiki thought through her sudden fear.  
"Hold it!" Twister shouted as he stepped between Nabiki and the dragon.  
The others looked on in horror. "No _way_ am I going to let you do that!"  
Casually, the dragon moved with surprising speed for such a large  
beast and hit Twister with the back of a forepaw. Hard. Twister went flying   
towards a thick, brick wall and crashed, with a painful sound, through it.  
The drake chuckled, "SUCH AN AMUSING INSECT. NOW..." It viewed Nabiki  
again. "LET'S START THIS AGAIN, SHALL WE?"  
"Pardon me dragon, but I _really_ think you should know something."  
Nabiki spoke with a slowly rising confidence.  
"DINNER THAT WANTS TO SPEAK." The head graciously nodded, "VERY WELL.  
SPEAK!" It roared out.  
"I _think_ you may have gotten Twister mad. Big Mistake."  
BAWOOOOM!!  
A ball of blue fire shot out from the new hole Twister had made and  
sizzled the same forepaw that had hit him moments before. The dragon roared  
in surprised pain.  
"AGH!! WHAT?! I AM IMPERVIOUS TO MAGIC!"  
Twister shot out of the hole, flying at the dragon. His eyes were   
glowing blue and the same color aura surrounded him. With a boosted kick   
increased by levitation and telekinesis, he hit the dragon on the side of   
the face. This rocked the mammoth creature.  
"AGGH! THAT HURT!" It swung its head to face a hovering Twister. The   
wall behind him had nobody near it. Deciding that enough was enough, the dragon  
inhaled quickly and blasted Twister with fire. The Outcast smiled at the   
assured defeat of the surprising young man and turned towards Miyabi with   
glee.  
"There goes your last hope, Miyabi!" Miyabi mearly smiled at him.   
The lack of dismay made him uneasy and the reason for the smile soon became   
obvious.  
The dragon stopped blasting and flames died to reveal an unharmed   
Twister. He had raised an air shield and kept the air around him cool,   
though it had started getting warm. A diamond sword appeared in   
outstretched hands and Twister came in close to attack.   
With the dragon distracted by Twister, Miyabi decided it was time to   
finally attack the Outcast. His surprise enabled her to get a good shot   
in and his left shoulder was hurt. Growling, he also started fighting in   
earnest. Takaya and Natsumi stayed out of the way of the two masters of   
magic and just watched the surprising show of power Twister was   
displaying while he engaged the dragon.  
Takaya was puzzled at this, *What _is_ he using? It's not magic yet  
it certainly seems somewhat effective against that dragon.* He thought for  
a second before a likely answer came to mind. *Perhaps...psionics? Well, it  
certainly isn't magic.*   
Dodging the dragon's quick swipes at him, Twister finally got close   
enough to take a swing at an arm. The diamond sword had a blade edge sharpened  
to the molecular level and could cut through pretty much anything normally.  
Unfortunately, the dragon's hide was protected by magic and the sword merely  
bounced off, surprising Twister momentarily.  
This gave the dragon time to get an accurate hit in which sent a   
slightly battered Twister flying a little ways before stopping in mid-air.  
He had barely used his telekinesis in time to protect himself like when  
the dragon had hit him through that brick wall.  
"HAH! YOU THINK A MERE SWORD CAN HARM ME?" The angry dragon scoffed.  
Twister raised his eyebrows, "Oh, really?" Blue flames suddenly sprang  
up around the diamond blade. "Let's try that again, shall we?" Commencing the  
same attack run, he flew rapidly towards the dragon again. When he got close  
enough, he duplicated his previous swing.   
With much better results.  
"AGGHH!" Normal blood did not flow from the wound the sword had   
made, but rather energy that slowly escaped from the slice Twister   
had made. "YOU WILL PAY FOR THAT, WORM!"   
"Visa or Mastercard? Besides, I thought _you_ were the wyrm!" Twister  
chuckled as he dodged away. Anger had finally fled and he was thinking   
normally now. Well, as normal as a boosted mind can get. He was thinking faster  
and better since he was accessing his greater Mind powers. The result of   
which...was that he wasn't sure what to do. The dragon was _massive_!   
Sooner or later, someone else would get hurt accidentally and he didn't   
know how to end the fight quickly without doing _major_ damage around them.  
The dragon decided to give fire a try again, but this time Twister   
was more than ready. As the wyrm inhaled, air gathered around Twister.   
When the giant mouth gaped open, he shouted an old attack he had used   
once before as he threw a fist forwards.  
"HURRICANE WALL!"  
An almost-solid wall of air roared forwards to meet the dragon's  
flaming breath. Flame deflected in all directions as the wall slowed a bit,  
but still managed to reach the dragon's open mouth to create a bit of a   
backlash effect. The dragon stopped the assault, sputtering and gasping   
in fury.  
Twister hovered, thinking, *How can I _stop_ this thing?* Spying  
Nabiki who was watching on the ground, he shouted, "Any ideas, Nabiki?"  
"It's _your_ statue! How am _I_ supposed to know?!"  
Head snapping up, Takaya's eyes opened wide as he digested that bit  
of information. While the dragon was still sputtering, he called out, "Twister!  
Come down here! Hurry!"  
Surprised, Twister quickly touched down in front of the third year  
magic user. "What's up? Got something that'll help with that thing?"  
"It will if you _really_ made the statue the dragon spirit is   
currently inhabiting." When Twister nodded the affirmative, Takaya rushed on,  
"Good. It means you have some power over the spirit since you created the   
form it now wears. Normally, a mage can forge a mystic link with minor   
spirits, inhabiting objects they make, to force them to do his will. The   
link and a greater mind are all that is required." He glanced at the   
dragon who was almost recovered. "Can you do that with that power of yours?"  
"I can try." Twister walked up close to the fuming dragon so that he  
didn't have to concentrate on flying. *Link. That means telepathy. I've never  
liked the idea of reading other people's minds so I've never tried it, but I  
believe I have it. Time to see if I do.*  
The dragon watched warily as Twister stopped in front of it. "SO.  
YOU HAVE SOME FORMIDABLE POWER OF YOUR OWN, MORTAL. I'VE NEVER ENCOUNTERED IT  
BEFORE SO I AM ILL PREPARED FOR IT. HOWEVER, I DO NOT THINK YOU CAN TOTALLY  
PREVENT ME FROM HARMING YOUR COMPANIONS IF I SO WISH."  
"Maybe, but I don't think so now. You see, I _created_ the form you   
wear."  
"INDEED? I MUST COMPLEMENT YOU THEN. I DO REALIZE THAT A LINK MAY GIVE  
YOU POWER OVER _LESSER_ SPIRITS...BUT AGAINST _ME_? I THINK NOT. MY MIND IS  
GREATER THAN YOURS COULD POSSIBLY BE."  
"Wanna bet?" Using his power, Twister stared at his opponent's  
enormous eyes and tried to reach the ancient mind of the beast. His eyes  
started to faintly glow blue as he felt the unfamiliar sensation of a   
direct contact mind-to-mind. The link was established. Both of the   
physical forms of Twister and the dragon went still as they withdrew from   
the physical plane into the mental one.

Natsumi turned to Takaya with worry on her face after seeing both   
combatants go still, "Can't we _do_ anything?"  
"The dragon may be distracted, but it's mystic defenses are still  
quite strong enough to easily ignore any attempts to help Twister. We can   
only wait." He looked over at the battle still raging between Miyabi and  
the Outcast. "As for the Professor...I think it would be wise not to   
interfere in that as well."  
That didn't help dispell the feeling of helplessness Natsumi was   
experiencing.

On the mental plane, Twister could mentally 'see' the defenses   
the dragon had around its vast mind and heard its mental chuckle.  
A pressure slowly started  
building around Twister as he started to 'see' things clearly now. A darkness  
was all around him as he stood on a 'flat' surface. A blue glow radiated from  
him as a representation of his unconscious defenses. As they were now, however,  
they were slowly being forced towards what he viewed as 'him'. The time to fight  
back was _now_, Twister decided privately.

That said, Twister accessed his psionic powers slowly and carefully.  
What he was going to attempt was new and he didn't know what would happen.  
His defenses stopped shrinking as they started glowing brighter. They  
were crude shields, but with the mental power Twister now had, they were   
enough for now. Ideas for future improvements for them started forming as   
Twister continued to use more of his power. Thoughts became clearer,   
better, and more far reaching in scope. He could tell his mind was losing   
extraneous, clouding emotions in the process of boosting his mind. Now,   
the ability of thinking of more than one thing at a time started up and   
an active attack upon the dragon began as Twister's mind continued to   
grow from the power he used to expand it.  
The dragon was puzzled when the shields surrounding the mortal's mind  
stopped their collapse. Also, the mind within the shields was visibly   
starting to _grow_ impossibly. Panic started to grow within the great   
beast when the mortal's shields started to expand _during_ it's assault.   
The mind was on a par with his _own_ now and _still_ growing. Suddenly,   
bolts of mental power shot out at _his_ shields and weakened them a   
little bit.  
*IMPOSSIBLE!* The dragon thought as more bolts started tearing  
at his shields, *HOW CAN THIS BE?* It paused for a second. *VERY WELL.  
NO MORE PLAY. I WILL CRUSH THIS MORTAL NOW.* The dragon spirit gathered  
it's mental power and threw a massive bolt at the crude shields of it's  
opponent.  
Twister mentally staggered back from the powerful psionic blast.  
His mind, now computer-like, assessed the damage.  
*Analysis: Shields weakened 32%  
Recommendations: Improve shielding using information sensed from  
enemy mental assault.  
Increase attack on dragon spirit.  
Build shields back up.  
Execute.*  
The escalation of the, surprisingly still intact, mortal's assault  
told the dragon how effective it's bolt had been. *THE MORTAL'S SHIELDS  
ARE WEAKENED, BUT FAR LESS THAN I HAD THOUGHT THEY WOULD BE. MY OWN   
HAVE GONE DOWN TOO MUCH FOR COMFORT. THE TIME TO FINISH THIS IS NOW.*  
Gathering it's strength, the dragon started throwing more bolts of the same   
power as before.  
To it's astonishment and dismay, the other's shields stayed up   
and continued to stay up while the dragon spirit's own shields were becoming  
dangerously low. At the current rate of loss, the dragon's shields would  
fall first.   
Unacceptable.  
The dragon decided to use it's own considerable experience in the   
mental plane to recover and to try to gain an advantage.  
Twister was sensing that the other's shields were approaching collapse  
when suddenly they, and the dragon's mind, vanished. Surprised, Twister  
stopped throwing bolts and started analyzing what had happened.  
A bolt came out of nowhere and brought Twister's shields dangerously  
close to failing. The dragon had hoped to take out Twister with most of his  
remaining power in the surprise attack. It had almost succeeded, but while  
the dragon was extremely powerful in magic and had considerable mental power,  
Twister still had a very large store of psionic energy remaining.  
He had been unsure of how to use it in the, never before experienced,  
mental plane and had used what he thought he could handle. Now, Twister  
decided to use it all to defeat the dragon. He now had new ideas to use,  
due to his mind being boosted throughout the mental conflict. One thing   
he did first was to immediately use a powerful scan that pierced the   
dragon's little cloaking trick it was using.   
Then Twister let 'er rip.  
Multiple attacks started hitting the dragon's shields at the _same_   
time. More bolts, power-draining whirlwinds, even mind-constructs started   
attacking him, with only the dragon's defeat desired in their created forms.  
Quickly, the dragon's defenses crumbled in this multiple assault and the  
mortal seized control of the tired dragon's mind. Twister stopped expansion  
of his mind's thinking abilities and decided what to do next.

Twister blinked and saw a _very_ worried Nabiki in front of him.  
"Hi honey, I'm hooome." He chuckled as she hugged him in relief.  
Something struck Twister then as he looked at the now-normal dragon statue,   
"You know what?"  
"What?" Nabiki said with some relief since the battle was over.  
"That was _very_ tiring to do." Nabiki's hug became a hug of  
support as Twister, once the wave of exhaustion hit him fully, sagged in   
her arms.   
"You may be a big lug, but do you have to show me you're a _heavy_   
one too?" Nabiki sighed in amused exasperation as she adjusted for his   
weight.   
Twister gave his weary response in a bad Terminator imitation.  
"I need a vacation." 

Chapter Sixteen  
\---------------

Seeing the two people in front of him, Takaya marvelled a bit at the  
recent turn of events. What he and Natsumi had set out to do that night had  
been shunted to the sidelines as they had been swept up into a brief, but  
potent, encounter with a major magical force. The professor had continued to   
battle the one called the Outcast while Twister confronted the dragon. The  
silent battle between man and dragon had started out normally with both  
suddenly becoming very still. That had changed when Twister's eyes started  
glowing a slowly increasing blue. The dragon had started to twitch its front  
limbs and the body shifting lightly. These motions had stopped suddenly  
with the entire body going limp in defeat.  
When that had happened, the various serpent-men had turned into smoke  
and were sucked into a swirling dimensional disk. The duel between the still  
battling magic-users had come to a sudden stop when a screaming and cursing  
Outcast was dragged into a black rectangle that seemed to match his aura.  
He vanished with the magical portal. This had surprised Prof. Miyabi who had   
been about to cast another spell before her opponent had been forced to   
withdraw. The still figures of Twister and dragon seemed to satisfy the   
puzzlement Takaya had seen in her eyes.   
All of them had been relieved when the dragon started to shrink back  
into the statue from which it had originally been. Wounds from Twister's  
attack vanished as the statue became just that again. With the dragon gone,  
Twister's eyes slowly came back to normal as the girl, Nabiki, he recalled,  
in that rather revealing gown, quickly came over to worriedly stand in front  
of the still figure. Worry became relief when Twister stirred and smilingly  
made that joking comment before the girl embraced him. Takaya wasn't   
surprised that Twister sagged with exhaustion in the girl's arms a second   
later. Defeating that powerful spirit's mind must have taken a lot of   
effort.   
Glancing at Natsumi, he was a little surprised at what he found there.  
Natsumi was sadly staring at the two hugging in front of them. In her  
quest to become a great magic-user, like all those in her family before her,  
she had never really been very attracted to boys she occasionally dated. Only  
for their good looks had she been interested in them, as well as the   
prestige of showing the current choice to other acquaintances. Friends   
she had had no time for.  
However, this battle she had just been involved in had shaken Natsumi   
to the core. The power that had been displayed here had shown that she   
had only made a minor contribution to the efforts made by the group.   
The power Twister had displayed had _really_ shocked her. He had not   
used magic at all and defeated a supremely powerful, _magical_ foe without   
it. Even without the surprising fact that he had _made_ the statue,   
Natsumi had numbly thought that the dragon and Twister had almost seemed   
equal for a time.   
The automatic defense of Nabiki and his helping _Natsumi_ when they had   
both been in trouble had unplugged Natsumi's ears to some things inside   
_her_ that were crying out to be heard. The sorrow, shock, and confusion she   
was feeling now was a direct result of these acts. She felt and looked lost.  
The almost forgotten Yuriko, who had been standing far out of the way  
with the freed and frightened girls, noticed Natsumi's expression. She  
could sympathize with Natsumi right now on that point. She too felt a little  
lost after this rapid turn of events, but felt compelled to see if the  
other girl was okay. Quietly she went up to Natsumi while a curious Takaya  
looked on.  
"You okay?" Yuriko softly smiled at Natsumi.  
Natsumi started slightly and turned her head to blankly look at   
Yuriko. In a confused voice, she asked, "What?"  
"Are you okay? I know _I'm_ feeling a little out of my depth   
here, but then I'm probably more used to it than you." Yuriko sighed and   
looked around the big warehouse. "All this is _definitely_ beyond me. I   
just wanted you to know you're not alone right now."  
A thankful smile started forming on the normally aloof Natsumi's face.  
"Thank you. I'm just feeling...small. It's...disorienting."  
Hearing the conversation, Twister gently broke off he and Nabiki's  
embrace since he had recovered enough to stand on his own power. Smiling in   
their direction, he softly spoke to Natsumi and Yuriko so that the   
scared business students couldn't hear him.  
"Maybe doing something familiar will help. Putting those _much_ more  
disoriented students to sleep for the moment would help. I'm sure Yuriko   
would love to join you. Great experience for her."  
"Sure! Come on, Natsumi! You can teach me how to do that!" With that  
said, Yuriko dragged the still disoriented Natsumi away. The small  
smile on Natsumi's face that promised a future lightening of her  
attitude.  
The professor rejoined them after examining the statue and the area  
around it minutely. She raised an eyebrow at the departing girls.  
"Hmm. _That_ one may brighten Natsumi's spirits. Finally." Turning to  
Twister, she smiled. "I _do_ hope you realize that the dragon was just toying  
with you before your fortunate link with it."  
Nabiki was about to object, but Twister just nodded. "Yeah. I found   
that out when I looked in it's mind. It didn't want to expend powerful   
magic at such a...minor annoyance." He chuckled. "It might have been   
surprised at the results with most spells if it _had_ done so. Still...it   
was fortunate that I was able to send it back that easily."  
Nabiki snorted, "_Easily_ he says." Looking down at herself she   
reddened a bit and added, "Can we go home soon? This...thing isn't much  
to wear."  
"I noticed." Twister smirked before she hit him in the side,   
causing him to lose his balance briefly since his tired state made him   
a bit unsteady. At Miyabi's amused chuckle, he turned to _her_. "Are you   
going to try to remove this night's experience from those girls while   
they're sleeping?"  
The professor nodded. "Yes. I think that would be best." She heard   
thunder outside and grimaced. "Getting them home will be another matter in  
the rain. We'll have to change their clothing as well."  
"That should be quite simple, professor." Takaya confidently said.  
Yuriko and Natsumi returned from the now-sleeping girls. Natsumi  
sarcastically said, "I didn't know you were such a _women's_ fashion expert,  
Takaya." This caused chuckles all around when they saw Takaya realize that   
his experience with such things was practically nil and looking bemused   
as a result.  
"Well, you guys dress 'em up and I'll help with teleporting them  
to a close spot to where they live." Twister sighed wearily, "One heck of a   
Friday night." A fact was remembered and he slowly turned to look at Natsumi   
and Takaya. "By the way... _Why_ were you two by Nabiki's apartment   
again?" Nabiki raised a suspicious eyebrow at that.  
"Ah...we were involved in a research project, I believe." Takaya   
said as Natsumi looked faintly guilty, a fact which surprised many   
present.  
"Right." A glance in Natsumi's direction created more guilt there.  
He just sighed. "A little more than that I think, but...all right." Twister  
started towards the statue, but stopped halfway. "Hm. Better just leave   
that and phone the police anonymously. To think that such a smallblubbb!!!"  
Rain had gathered on the roof of the old warehouse and had nowhere  
to go due to stopped up drainage devices. The weight had finally caused a   
series of events which resulted in a downpour of rainwater falling right where  
Twister happened to be. The others laughed out loud at Twister's drenching.  
This stopped when half realized what had happened and the other half stared  
at Twister's change.  
Dripping water, Twister progressed through various feelings in a very  
short span of time. First, horror at the badly timed change, then a resigned   
expression as if she knew this would occur. Finally, a peeved look filled   
her face as she shook both hands above her.  
"Did that _really_ have to happen?! Gah!" She looked very weary  
and just sat down at that spot, head sagging tiredly.  
A similar change of emotions was showing on Natsumi's face now as well.  
Shock, furious anger, puzzlement, and calmness showed in progressive order.  
The calmness slowly changed into a slightly hysterical laughter.  
"So...much for...your plan...to _marry_ 'Itazuka'," she chortled   
at a mightily shocked Takaya.  
Twister's head snapped up at that and focused on the male magic user.  
"Marry?!" Her eyes narrowed. "Not that 'marriage to get wife's magic' ploy.  
I've already gone through _that_ once. I'd rather not do it again, thank you  
very much." An angry expression was on her face as she stood up and started   
to stalk Takaya.  
"Calm down, Twister. I think that particular idea just got shot down  
anyway," smirked Nabiki as she regarded a weakly grinning Takaya backing up   
from Twister's stormy advance.  
Stopping, Twister eyed Takaya before reluctantly nodding. "True.  
At least it _better_ be. Sometimes the fact I can only do magic in this form  
really gets complicated."  
"So you're really a _guy_, 'Itazuka'?" smirked out a calming   
Natsumi.  
"Yup. Had to come to class like this though."  
"_That_ had been a surprise," Prof. Miyabi sighed. "I think we had   
better finish things _here_ first."  
With a sloppy salute, Twister got to attention, "Yes, ma'am!"  
Rolling her eyes, Miyabi muttered, "This is going to be a long night."

Since hot water was unavailable, and no one wanted to tire   
Twister any further, the group had to rely on the more experienced   
magic-users to transport the now-normally clothed girls back home, sans   
memory of the night's traumatic events. Takaya was still in a state of  
shock over Twister's unintentional revelation of his dual nature. A   
changed Natsumi accepted this fact a lot better. Likely due to Twister's  
performance against the dragon which gave him a _lot_ of status in her eyes  
and made her previous defeats _much_ more acceptable.  
When they returned to Nabiki's apartment, they found that the   
disturbance had amazingly not been noticed yet. This gave them time to   
fix up the damaged apartment quickly. With her usual pleasure at doing   
such, Yuriko happily found out how to do most of the clean-up magically   
since she knew better than anyone else what everything looked like   
before. She went to bed very quickly after finishing though.  
The professor decided that she wasn't needed anymore and went home  
with a smile before disappearing. The same thought hit Takaya and he   
vanished as well.   
That left Nabiki, Twister, and Natsumi.  
"So I guess I don't have to worry about you trying to fricasee me   
again?" Twister inquired Natsumi. He had found hot water and was back in  
male form again. He and Nabiki, who had found normal clothes, were sitting on   
a couch, facing a blushing Natsumi.  
"Ah... I was very angry then, Twister. Sorry about that."  
Twister waved a hand. "The sword thing wasn't very nice of me either   
and..." He blinked. "Oh, jeez. I'd forgotten all about those. Be right  
back." Vanishing silently, Twister soon reappeared with a thick envelope   
which he handed to a puzzled Natsumi who opened it. "Um... This was when   
I thought you were trying to kill me."  
Natsumi became very red and slightly angry. "TWISTER!!"  
"Are they _that_ bad?"  
"You didn't look at these?" The thought made Natsumi calmer, but she  
was still slightly red.   
Nabiki was curious at the other girl's reaction, "What are they?"  
"Ah, the two guys I gave Natsumi to were hentai's who were waiting for  
_me_ to come out. I was a little mad at the time." Twister rubbed the  
back of his head. "I found out they took photos and asked for an extra set.  
Just in case. I don't think I really need them now." He sighed. "They tried  
again, but I think they've given up on me. Hopefully."  
"If _they_ took my bra..." Natsumi slowly gained a humorless   
smile as she forced herself to look at the photos.  
Shaking his head, Twister replied, "You won't have much luck there.  
I think they burned it when they found out how far-reaching you can be."  
Disappointed, Natsumi pleaded to him, "_Who_ are they then?"  
Twister laughed at that. "_Mud_ I would say. When I reversed  
the effects of a pheromone they used, every girl in smelling range wanted to   
pound on them." Natsumi was barely mollified when she heard that. "I   
don't think you need to do anything else to them. Besides, they're   
friends of mine. Unfortunately at times."  
"Well, I don't know about you two, but I know _you're_ beat,   
Twister, and it's late." Nabiki stood up. "You also have your usual lesson   
with Ranma tomorrow."  
"True. I really need some shut-eye." He smiled at Natsumi.   
"Thanks for helping tonight, Natsumi. Ta!" He vanished.  
Natsumi sighed, "I'd better go too."  
"Just a second. Before you go I just want to know something." Nabiki  
crossed her arms. "You and Takaya were planning on 'changing' my mind, am I  
correct?"  
Thinking about denying it for a second then giving up, Natsumi sighed  
and nodded. "We were. I won't try that again." A slow smile grew on her  
face after that statement though. "I guess I'll have to try it by non-magical  
means then. I'm new at that, but I can learn! Bye!" Before Nabiki could  
retort, Natsumi slowly vanished like a Cheshire cat.   
Narrowing her eyes and smiling, Nabiki spoke to empty air, "We'll  
just see about _that_." With that pleasant thought, she got ready for bed.  
When Nabiki went into her room, an invisible Natsumi opened the front   
door and slipped out. She wasn't too good at teleporting like Miyabi and   
Takaya. Fortunately, Nabiki mistook invisibility for teleportation as she   
didn't know what Natsumi could do.  
While it couldn't be seen, Natsumi wore a large smile on her face.  
*I guess we _will_ see, but _this_ time you don't.*

When Twister 'ported into his room, he walked out to see how Yasuro  
was doing.  
The person in question turned around at Twister's door opening.  
"Everything turn out okay?" Seeing Twister collapse laughing on   
the couch after hearing that answered his question. "I guess so, but I   
gather it must have been interesting."  
Twister chuckled while still on the couch. It was very   
comfortable and he was very tired. "Oh, fun and a half. An insane, evil  
mage, serpent-men mages, and, joy of joys, one powerful dragon spirit   
inhabiting a statue, with whom I had a _fun_ time fighting with. I would   
say it was an interesting evening." Smirking at a gaping Yasuro, he   
added, "Care to join us next time?"  
Closing his mouth, Yasuro stared at Twister. "No thanks, I'll pass."  
He blinked. "_Dragon_??"  
"Don't worry. They're gone. Had help from my professor of magic,   
Natsumi, and Takaya, which helped a _lot_." Twister mused out loud. "At least  
I don't have to worry about Natsumi trying to kill me now. Darn rain."  
"So she knows now?"  
"Yup. I'm going to sleep. Just thought you might want to know." That  
said, Twister fulfilled his statement and went back to his room after   
regretfully leaving the comfortable couch.  
Yasuro shook his head as he turned back to his computer.   
"That guy has more things happening to him..."  
Twister poked his head out between his door and added, "Oh, by the   
way... How are the trouble twins?"  
"Still in unbearable pain and agony I heard last. Of course they came  
over to complain about their woes. They looked like they were surviving."  
He chuckled slightly. "Then again, I don't think they feel like it right now."  
Twister laughed as he closed his door again.

Chapter Seventeen  
\-----------------

Days passed, and then weeks as Twister and Nabiki studied.  
Twister was doing very well in all his classes as he continued to study magic  
in the 'special' one. Surprisingly, or maybe not given what happened in  
the old warehouse, Yuriko and Natsumi became fairly close friends. The second  
year Natsumi started helping the eager Yuriko with magic along with   
Twister since she had experience with what they were learning already.   
A now different Natsumi smiled a lot more and didn't use as much   
make-up. She also wasn't as forceful to get Twister, but she did still   
indicate interest at a lower level which didn't scare him away, much to   
Nabiki's annoyance. Nabiki and Twister were going on more dates now   
and their feelings towards one another were beginning to deepen, much to   
Natsumi's annoyance.  
This emerging triangle was starting to give Twister some worries.   
The trips back to the Tendo home gave him some relief from the tensions it  
was causing. Eventually, Twister became almost as good as Ranma and was   
satisfied with that. Ranma did decide to teach him one of the special   
techniques that he knew so that their practice fights would be more   
interesting. Twister liked it because he thought it was neat and it would   
be a nice thing to have for his female side to use. Fighting each other   
released a lot of stress for both fighters.   
At some point, Twister decided to use his male body in their practices   
and they found out that, when he first arrived, he had been   
unconsciously using his psionic abilities to slightly boost himself. That  
explained why he had seemed stronger than Ryouga and Shampoo before, as   
well as faster than Ranma. With his improved control from martial arts training,  
Twister didn't do that anymore. He gave Ranma a good fight, but still  
lost.   
One embarrassing time was when Twister brought along a sample of the  
pheromone to prove to Ranma that he hadn't been lying about the stuff.  
Unfortunately, he had left a closed sample vial and Ranma-chan alone in a room  
when Akane and Kasumi wanted a telekinetic hand with _something_, he didn't  
know _what_, that Akane had made in the kitchen. A chuckling Twister and  
a miffed Akane had returned to the door of the room a little later to see  
the proof of how potent the chemical was. When Twister opened the door they  
froze in the doorway at what they saw. Reacting quickly, Twister had pulled  
Akane back from the door and slammed it shut. While Akane was still  
stunned, he ran back to the kitchen and got some hot water. He returned to  
the door, used his 'unnotice me' trick, and went inside. A minute later,  
both he and a _very_ embarrassed, now-clothed Ranma emerged. Before Ranma or  
Akane could say anything, Twister had said, "I _told_ you that stuff was  
_powerful_! Don't drop a glass vial like that while looking at it next time,   
hmm?" Ranma had flushed at that and then Akane when Twister added, "At least  
you had been looking at Akane and not _me_! Good thing you weren't _both_ in  
there." He would have continued, but the two threw him into the pond.

After several months into the college year, Prof. Miyabi told Twister  
to wait for a minute after the period was over. All through class Twister   
wondered what it could be and was itching to know when class finally ended.  
After the students left, including Yuriko, Twister walked up to a   
smiling Miyabi.  
"What's up?"  
Standing by the chalkboard, Miyabi started to talk, "Remember when  
I mentioned a while ago about some 'things' I had to do, but could not   
accomplish on my own?" Thinking for a moment, Twister finally nodded, warily.  
Miyabi sighed, "Well, apparently one of those tasks needs to be done  
very soon from the information I received yesterday." She paced the   
floor now. "There is an evil spirit who is bound in a magical trap in   
China. Every thousand years or so, the main component that binds the   
creature needs to be replaced as the creature strives to corrupt it in   
order to free itself. It is a crystal that must be found naturally and is   
enchanted to become a powerful transportation device. The power of the   
enchanted crystal keeps the spirit trapped in one spot. Unfortunately, it   
takes at least four powerful magic-users to make it, and they must be   
female as well. The Guardian of the creature is an old teacher of mine   
and I promised that when I found a powerful enough apprentice that we   
would help her and _her_ current apprentice create a new crystal."   
Miyabi frowned now as she continued. "However, she and I have had   
trouble _finding_ apprentices with a powerful enough mystic aura to do   
the job and the current crystal is nearing it's breaking point. In   
desperation, she has taken _two_ apprentices, instead of one, in order   
to get enough power for _her_ half. _You_, Twister..." She smiled, "You   
have a powerful enough aura more than necessary to be one of the   
magic-users so all together we should not have any trouble." Walking up   
to Twister, she laid a hand on each shoulder. "I _need_ you to come with   
me on Friday night."  
Twister smiled wryly, "Doesn't sound like I should _not_ go. I'm in."  
She raised an eyebrow. "How do we get there?"  
With relief, Miyabi answered that question easily, "I have a stone  
from the village to home in on and I know the place to go to. Getting back  
is easy." Thoughtfully, she looked at Twister. "You had better stay as a   
girl, just in case."  
"Huh? Why?"  
"The village is called the 'village of the Amazons' for good reason  
and..." She noted Twister's pained look. "You know their laws of combat   
there then?"  
Twister sighed and nodded, "I've heard of it from someone I know..."

The next few days Twister ate furiously in order to make sure he had  
enough energy for what he would help Miyabi with when he left on Friday.  
He told Nabiki that he was going to go help the professor with something  
magical, but wisely refrained mentioning _where_ as it would only worry her.  
When Friday afternoon finally came, he sent a letter to Ranma saying  
he couldn't make it that weekend and got ready to go. The Dragonsword he took  
with him for helping with the enchantment of the crystal. An option Twister   
had put in the sword was to make it a _focus_ for mystic power to make the  
use of magic easier. Another option let Twister shrink the sword to fit  
into a special holder he had made for it under his shirt. With that done, he  
was finally ready and teleported to Prof. Miyabi's.

In the village of the Amazons, worried eyes viewed a once-pure  
crystal, the old village scrolls said it had indeed been that way, that was   
now black as coal.  
*I hope that old friend of Mistress Perfume gets here soon with her  
new apprentice. The crystal won't last another week, I think.*  
The person contemplating the enchanted crystal was a very lovely  
young girl whose long brown hair framed her face beautifully. She was standing  
in a magically protected room that had a large, flat, circular stone in the   
middle. It was pitch black and matched the color of the crystal that hovered  
above the center of the stone. Her brown eyes regarded the crystal with  
concern.  
Another girl confidently strode into the room and spoke to the now   
tense occupant mockingly.

Not willing to give the raven-haired girl any satisfaction  
at seeing her so nervous, Lotion chuckled as she kept her eyes on the crystal.

Lotion didn't see the fiery flash of anger in Masque's eyes,   
but she could sense it all the same. The slightly taller and older   
apprentice gave out a lot of insults, but didn't receive them too well.  
Masque's voice was angry as she spoke again, She snorted.   
A voice from the only door to the room quelled Lotion's response.  
An  
ominous light was present in their Mistress's eyes as she arched her eyebrows  
at a nonrepentant Masque. The Mistress of magic was very old, but did not   
show her true age thanks to magic. Tall and regal she stood, confident   
in her formidable abilities. Perfume's beauty was enhanced by the wisdom   
found in her eyes. She turned to Lotion.   
Lotion shuddered at the idea.  
Perfume turned around and was about to leave when they heard a   
loud pop outside.  
She smiled.   
With an eager Lotion and a smirking Masque behind her, Perfume regally  
walked outside to meet the new arrivals to the village.  
Lotion was wondering what the new apprentice would be like. *I hope  
she's not like Masque. It's not likely since she is as new as I am.  
I wonder if she's pretty...*   
She blushed at that thought.   
One reason she had accepted Perfume's offer of apprenticeship after   
finishing third at the last martial arts competition was that she didn't want   
to have to follow the village laws about being defeated by an outsider. That   
had happened to the best, Shampoo, a few years ago by that girl who had   
wandered in that Lotion had been so attracted to. The village was still   
puzzled over Shampoo, Mousse, and the old martial arts Mistress, Cologne,   
staying in Japan. Shampoo was apparently having trouble getting that male   
Ranma to marry her and nothing was being said about that female Ranma that had   
defeated Shampoo before the other Ranma did. The two sisters, Linlin and Ranran,   
had gone to check, but they weren't saying anything.  
Very curious indeed.  
She sighed. *When I found out my...tastes were different, I decided  
not to take the chance of getting married to some man I don't want _or_ having  
to kill a girl I _do_ want. Magic allows me to escape that martial arts  
fighter's rule for outsiders by simply not fighting. No one usually   
_wants_ to physically fight a mage. I hope so anyway.*  
There was a commotion outside when the three wielders of magic left  
their large home. Their new guests were surrounded by angry villagers with  
the reason being obvious once they looked at the two new arrivals.  
Lotion was shocked. *It's that same girl who beat Shampoo! She looks  
taller now and filled out a bit more, but it's _her_! Is _she_ the   
apprentice??*  
A momentarily taken aback Perfume paused for a second before striding  
into the circular crowd. She and her two apprentices were almost into the   
center when they heard a loud and frustrated voice speaking in Japanese.  
"For the _last_ time! I am _not_ Ranma!"  
Finally through, the three saw the reason for the red-headed girl's  
shout. The two girls, Linlin and Ranran, were standing a short distance away  
from the newly arrived pair and looked ready to attack the girl with the   
red-hair.  
A worried Miyabi was looking around and spied a bemused-looking  
Perfume standing inside the circle with relief. "Perfume! Could you get those  
girls to calm down and not attack my apprentice, please?"  
Regaining her composure, Perfume looked at the angry, red-haired girl  
and saw the very powerful mystic aura surrounding her. Perfume had witnessed  
the female Ranma defeat Shampoo and had discretely checked for mystic   
ability, to prevent cheating. She had seen nothing there except an   
advanced martial artist's focused aura.  
This was not the female Ranma.  
Raising her hands, Perfume shouted out to the gathered villagers  
around her. Turning a questioning gaze to the red-head, she asked   
in perfect Japanese, "What _is_ your name?"  
"Twister," she sighed with relief. "Thanks for the save. Two points."  
Twister warily watched a disappointed Linlin and Ranran walk away into the   
crowd.   
Miyabi raised an amused eyebrow at Perfume. "I didn't expect _this_   
kind of welcome, Perfume."  
With a bow of apology, Perfume smiled slightly at Miyabi and Twister.  
"Forgive my village. Your apprentice looks exactly like a girl who  
defeated the champion of a martial arts contest a few years ago."  
Twister snorted. "Hmp. I didn't think they would be _that_ mad.   
Shampoo didn't look like it."   
That caused Perfume to blink. "You know Shampoo? Has she found and  
killed the female Ranma yet?"  
*Eep! I guess Shampoo and the others haven't said anything about  
Ranma's curse. Shoot.* She shrugged nonchalantly, "I don't know anything  
about killing a _female_ Ranma, just that she's still trying to catch a _male_  
Ranma. Cologne's helping. Mousse is there as well."  
"Mousse?" Perfume chuckled mirthfully. "That could explain the delay.  
My sister is sure to speed things up though."  
"Sister??" Looking at the beautiful sorceress before her, Twister  
was understandably startled. "You two certainly don't look it...er...I   
mean..." She stopped to prevent further embarrassment.  
Perfume laughed. "One of the many benefits of magic you shall  
find." Remembering the purpose that the two had come for, Perfume went  
on, smiling, "But now I must introduce you two to _my_ apprentices." She   
waved the two standing behind her forward to be presented. "This is   
Lotion and Masque. They shall both be helping with the new crystal. I had   
been worried about the strength of your student, but I need not worry   
about that now. She is quite strong I see."  
Twister blushed at the praise as Lotion looked at her with curiosity  
and something else. Masque was not gazing with the same friendliness as Lotion  
and had a rather annoyed look about her as she heard Perfume's statement at  
the new arrival's power.  
"Shall we start the preparations then, Perfume?" Miyabi was anxious  
to start.  
"Yes." Perfume turned to address her students. That said, she and Miyabi walked off into  
the large house, leaving an awkward feeling Twister behind.  
"Come then. Not stand like dumb statue," Masque impatiently said as  
she too went into the large building.  
"Sheesh! Hold your horses." Twister smiled at the curious Lotion. "Do  
you mind leading the way?" She noticed that Lotion was still looking at her.  
"Hello?"  
Starting, Lotion quickly bowed to hide her blush and swiftly turned  
to lead the way into the house. "Of course. Follow Lotion." As she walked  
towards the house Lotion sighed to herself. *Such a cute looking girl. Too  
bad she won't be here long...*  
Inside the house, Masque was maliciously plotting.  
*So. The new 'prentice is stronger than me in magic is she? We'll just   
see how _smart_ she is.* She smiled wickedly as she recalled Lotion's   
ill-concealed expression when she had seen Twister. *And I think I can teach  
that uppity Lotion a lesson as well.*  
Her wicked smile broadened.

Chapter Eighteen  
\----------------

As it was late when they arrived, Twister merely had a quiet dinner  
with Lotion and Masque and retired to bed early.  
When she woke up the next morning, Twister realized that there really  
wasn't anything for her to _do_.  
*Great. Even homework would be good for something. Hm. Maybe not...*   
She sighed. *Maybe I should just practice martial arts and also try my   
sword-swinging ability.* With that decided, Twister took out the shrunken   
sword and had it return to normal size to use.   
*Let's see if I can use this thing any better...*

Masque had left Lotion to watch the crystal as she went to check on   
the new guest. Her plans for Lotion and Twister were still, as yet, unformed,  
but she was sure something would come up. Hurried sounds of movement inside  
the guest room made her wonder what Twister was doing. When she opened the  
door, what she saw surprised her.  
Whirling around with amazing speed was Twister, with a finely-crafted  
blade in her hands. She appeared to be pretending to fight a horde of   
imaginary attackers. The expression on her face seemed to be a mixture of  
frustration and determination. This puzzled Masque, for the speed of the   
sword made it just a blur, but the reason soon became clear as she noticed   
that Twister's swordwork didn't look practiced, just random.  
Twister finally noticed her audience and immediately stopped swinging  
the sword around.  
"Oh, hi. Sorry, I didn't see you."  
"Not problem." Masque cocked her head curiously. "That nice sword."  
Sighing, Twister idly swung the sword around, "It is a nice sword,  
but I've never been trained for it's use. Useful though."  
_That_ made Masque's eyebrows shoot up. "Apprentice with sword   
strange to Masque. How well sword cut?"  
Smirking, Twister found a towel nearby and placed it over the sharp   
edge of the sword. It immediately parted in two from the combination of  
gravity on both halves of the towel and the sharpness of the sword.  
"Pretty good, I'd say," said Twister chuckling. "Good thing it   
doesn't touch human flesh."  
"It magic too?" Masque was starting to feel more than a little   
jealous about this girl. Strong magic and owning a sword that was   
beautifully made, uncannily sharp, and magic as well. *I just _have_ to   
do something to this one, but what can...* An idea formed in her head   
and she smiled to herself.  
Bowing, Masque backed out of the room. "Masque must go now. See   
Twister in little while." She left.  
*Hm. What was _that_ about?*  
Twister wondered at the uneasy feeling she had.

Around noon, Twister finally left the guest room and looked for  
someone to talk to. No one seemed to be around which puzzled her. Hearing a  
crowd outside, Twister went out to see what was going on.  
Once out the door, however, she faced an angry looking mob of women  
which surprised her.  
*Huh? I thought that Ranma look-alike business was over.*  
One of the women stepped forward and gestured angrily at Twister to  
come with them. Puzzled greatly, Twister decided to follow the woman to find   
out what was going on. They walked a little ways, with the mob angrily   
surrounding them, until they reached an large, open area with a rope   
suspended log over a steaming? pool of water.  
*Uh, oh. Hot water.* Twister scanned the crowd. *What _is_ going on?*  
"TWISTER!" cried a familiar voice. "I challenge you!"  
*???* Surprised at the voice, Twister called back. "Lotion?? What's  
going on?"  
Lotion jumped onto an end of the suspended log with a quarterstaff in  
her hands. She looked spitting mad and Twister was _wondering_ like mad why  
Lotion was acting thus.  
"I _not_ let Lotion _or_ village be insulted by Twister!" She expertly  
spun the quarterstaff in her hands. "Twister must pay!"  
"Say what?! But..." Twister's protests were ignored as she was herded  
towards the log. Before they dumped her in the water, Twister did a high,  
expertly done leap and landed on the opposite end of the log. This display of  
ability surprised Lotion and the others watching. "Mind telling me what this  
is about now?"  
"Lotion not talk! Lotion will fight Twister!" She started to approach  
cautiously, having seen Twister's leap.  
*Oh, boy.*  
About three steps away from Twister, Lotion lunged forward with the   
quarterstaff, aiming to knock the red-head unconscious. It was avoided by  
a swift dodge to the side that blurred Twister with the speed of the move.  
The young, Chinese magic-user, who had not neglected her martial   
arts skills, started using rapid-fire lunges to try to hit the,   
frustratingly hard to hit, target.   
Twister was used to speed. Training with Ranma made sure of that   
since the practice fights they had made Twister mostly focused on trying  
to avoid, and hit, the lightning-quick Ranma. Fortunately, Lotion wasn't  
as fast, but dodging her staff took a fair bit of concentration.  
Seeing her lack of results, Lotion stopped her attack and moved  
in closer, weapon humming as she spun it through the air in practiced   
patterns. Her expression showed her controlled fury at whatever she   
thought Twister had said.  
On the other hand, Twister was _thinking_ furiously.  
*Okay, let's think about this. Nothing I said _yesterday_ seemed to  
offend anybody _this_ badly...so it must have happened today. Who did I   
speak with today....?* Realization hit as she warily watched Lotion's   
quarterstaff coming closer. *Masque!! Why that little..!!* Twister spared  
a little attention from Lotion to scan the crowd for Masque, and found her.  
Smiling widely where everyone else was frowning.  
Turning hastily back to Lotion, Twister started talking. "Well,   
Lotion," she ducked to avoid the staff, "apparently, I've unknowingly said   
_something_," make an attack with a quick leg sweep that Lotion jumped to   
avoid, "to offend you. Or _have_ I?" Lotion was starting to look   
confused as she continued attacking. Not wanting to fight Lotion because   
of some misunderstanding, Twister hadn't really tried to hit Lotion, but  
to stop her attacking and get her to listen... Twister took a chance and  
managed a kick that hit the staff in the middle and broke it in half.  
While Lotion paused in shock, Twister sighed, "Consider who _told_   
you this and see _who_ is laughing at this pointless fight."  
Lotion was confused for a moment. Then a horrible realization started  
coming over her and she turned her head to stare with great shock at the   
smiling Masque. The two pieces of her quarterstaff were held loosely in her   
hands.  
Twister didn't know if Lotion would feel honor-bound to finish   
the fight or not, so she swiftly used a roundhouse kick to hit Lotion in   
the head just hard enough to dislodge her from the log and into the   
hot spring. As the surprised Lotion hit the water, Twister finally   
remembered something she had forgotten, due to martial arts conditioning   
for finishing fights with Ranma.  
Something _very_ important.  
*OH, NO!!!! Damn!* With one hand holding the sword, Twister   
slapped the other hand to her forehead. *I forgot those rules about   
outsiders!* Angrily, she turned to look down at a grinning Masque.   
"Having fun over _starting_ this mess?"  
"Masque have _great_ fun, Twister! Stupid Lotion actually believe   
Masque!" She laughed gleefully as the crowd started to slowly realize what had  
happened.  
About to continue, Twister was interrupted by a splash and a thump.  
Turning to face Lotion, she was surprised when Lotion sadly kissed her on the  
cheek. Moving away from the kiss, Lotion looked at Twister silently, but her  
eyes showed sorrow and remorse over what had happened and what she had to do.  
That brought Twister over the edge.  
"That's it!" she cried angrily, startling everyone. Stepping off the  
log, Twister dropped into the hot water below the log and was quickly below  
the surface. The watchers were wondering what Twister was doing when a larger  
and more powerful looking form shot out of the water in a great leap and   
landed in front of the now-shocked Masque.  
Twister was now a handsome, muscular _male_.  
Smiling wryly, Twister said, "Surprise!" and swung the Dragonsword  
swiftly down on Masque's head to everyone's horror. Especially Masque's,  
before the sword passing through her head and body rendered her unconscious.  
He had freed and expanded the sword just before hitting the water.   
"_That_ should teach you a lesson for a while." He snorted. "Until you wake  
up likely." Twister looked around at the stunned faces of everyone present  
and grinned. "I'm going to dry off. Ta!" That said, he teleported into the  
guest room he used.  
The frozen Lotion, who was still standing on the log, slowly came out  
of the shock Twister's change had caused. A thoughtful expression came to being  
on her face and stayed there a while as she gazed at the unconscious Masque.  
Then another kind of expression went onto her face.  
She smiled broadly and her eyes drooped seductively.  
Not a good sign for Twister.

*Well, that was incredibly stupid,* Twister sighed mentally as he  
dried himself off with TK-controlled air. *Though, thinking back on it, I  
don't know how I could have avoided that. I was confused by the challenge  
and too angry when I realized that Masque had set us both up. Must be   
something going on between her and Lotion, even though Lotion doesn't seem  
to be one who initiates this sort of thing.* With an amused, but weary   
chuckle, he went to the kitchen to find some water to change back.   
*They're used to me the other way.*  
Perfume and Miyabi were tiredly going into their own rooms after  
completing the preparations for the crystal. They had stayed up all night  
and used a fair portion of their strength to do so.   
Nevertheless, Perfume reacted swiftly when she saw a strange person  
walking in her home. She cast a paralysis spell at the unknown, young  
man before Miyabi could say anything and confidently strode forward to   
question him. Perfume was shocked beyond belief when the intruder, who   
should have been made completely immobile, blinked and smiled at the two   
approaching women.   
"Finished, Professor? Perfume?"  
Before a shocked Perfume could say anything, Miyabi quickly nodded,   
"Yes, Twister. We were just going to get some rest for tomorrow." She   
cocked an inquiring eyebrow at the male Twister. "Why are you like that?   
Did something happen?"  
Twister sighed and nodded, "Yup. I think Masque told Lotion that I   
said something _bad_ about her and the village for some reason. Lotion   
was furious and challenged me. I defeated her." Miyabi just shook her   
head. "Well, I was confused and angry! I didn't know _what_ Lotion was so   
mad about until I saw Masque, smiling like a maniac when everybody else was   
frowning, and put two and two together. This made me _very_ angry when   
I saw how sorry Lotion looked when she realized what had been done so I   
jumped into the hot water we were fighting above and gave Masque   
something to remember me by." Twister shrugged. "Too late now. I'm going   
to change back since I came that way." That said, he walked away towards   
the kitchen.  
Disoriented by the torrent of information, Perfume turned inquiringly   
at Miyabi who sighed and started telling her about Twister.

When dinnertime came around, everybody who was going to be involved  
in the changing of the crystals was sitting at the table. Perfume and Miyabi  
had gotten some rest and looked more alert then when Twister had last seen  
them. Masque had changed clothes, since Twister's slice had split her garments  
in half, and was sullenly refusing to look anybody in the eye, just   
concentrating on her food.  
The person who was making Twister nervous was Lotion. Twister   
had thought seeing her 'future husband', Twister winced inwardly at that   
thought, as a girl would disappoint her. Such was not the case. On the   
contrary, Lotion was looking at Twister in a very lazy manner, which   
unnerved Twister to no end throughout the meal. The nervousness Twister   
showed was noticed by Lotion, making the Chinese apprentice smile   
lazily. A reprieve came after everybody finished and Perfume clapped her   
hands to gain their attention.  
She spoke calmly, "The new crystal had been made ready for the power  
we shall give it tomorrow morning. I suggest we all retire early now to be  
at our peak for the energization of the new crystal. We must all be careful,  
for this time the restraining crystal is very weak and near the breaking   
point." Perfume looked around the table at everyone. "_Very_ careful."  
That said, she stood up and went to retire for the day.  
Twister agreed wholeheartedly with that statement and quickly left  
for her own room, Lotion's eyes following her all the way.

Around midnight, something woke a groggy Twister from her sleep, but  
she wasn't sure what it was in her sleep-drugged state. Half-opening her  
eyes she took a brief look around the room before closing her eyes to   
contemplate the scene viewed.   
Nothing had been moving and everything had seemed to be in their  
proper place. Twister sighed and thought that her mind must be playing   
tricks on her. With that settled, Twister let her mind drift back towards  
sleep as the sigh beside her corresponded with the arm just under her breasts  
tightening around her slightly.  
*SAY WHAT?!?!*   
That fact woke Twister to full awareness in a hurry as her eyes flew  
open and her head turned to view the arm's sleeping owner beside her.  
Lotion had slipped under the covers that she was using and was now   
closely nestled beside Twister with a contented smile on her face.  
In a detached thought, Twister mused, *Hmm. Shampoo did this to Ranma  
too, I think. Must be something to do with the customs here.* She blinked her  
eyes to gather her thoughts back into something approaching calm to figure  
out how to deal with this 'little' problem.  
Lotion apparently felt her movements, likely due to the very close  
proximity to Twister, and opened her eyes to smile dreamily at the   
nervous red-head.  
Trying to keep it together and not panic, Twister calmly said,   
"Um... What are you doing, Lotion?"  
"Rule of village say Lotion and Twister must be married now since   
marriage law more important than one of death." This, unfortunately, did   
not seem to distress Lotion.  
_Trying_ to distress Lotion, Twister replied, "Doesn't it bother you  
that I change forms? And that I'm female now?"  
"Not bother Lotion. It good since Lotion not have to kill Twister   
now."  
*I'd make that _try_ to kill and this definitely is not good. Does  
it get much worse than this? Nabiki's gonna _KILL_ me,* Twister mentally  
groaned inside.  
"As for being female, Lotion like _much_ better than male." She   
directed a steamy look at Twister.  
*Urk!!!!*   
The meaning of what Lotion had just said wasn't lost on Twister.   
This, combined with all the other distressing thoughts racing through her   
mind, managed to temporarily short-circuit her mental processes.  
In other words, Twister fainted.  
Thinking Twister was tired and had gone back to sleep, Lotion smiled  
a little more and snuggled closer to the unconscious Twister.

The next morning found the five enchanters standing on the edges of  
the black, circular stone where the evil spirit was imprisoned. Hovering  
over the center of the obsidian seal was the old, blackened crystal. It seemed  
to be wavering in its place. Perfume told them this was a sign of its   
upcoming destruction.  
Twister had brought along her Dragonsword to help focus her   
power, but she realized that it had never been tried that way yet. Now was   
_not_ a time to see if it worked. She was also trying, and failing, to   
not think about her trouble with Lotion. Getting up silently and leaving   
before Lotion woke up had been a major accomplishment. A nerve wrecking   
one as well. Twister had managed to divert her thoughts by cooking   
something big for everyone since she had gotten up early, the usual when   
she had a large store of energy. The large meal prepared had surprised   
everyone, but Perfume had wisely nodded saying that they could use the   
extra energy. An unfortunate result was that Lotion seemed even more   
happy with Twister when she tasted the food.  
Perfume brought Twister's thoughts back to the present as she slowly  
walked towards the old crystal. Taking a bag from her belt, she opened it and  
took out a wondrous looking crystal. It was sapphire blue in color, but a   
very pure form of the shade. Viewing it brought forth memories of clear   
blue skies on summer afternoons when a person didn't have a care in the   
world. Unusually, the crystal could not be seen through. Even at the   
thinnest parts of it.  
Perfume carefully held the new crystal above the old one. Holding it   
in place for a few seconds, she suddenly released the stone. It hung in   
place above the corrupted one as she returned to her original position  
in the ring.  
Perfume spoke, "Now we shall start filling the crystal with power.  
I shall go first, then Miyabi, Masque, Lotion, and then Twister. Continue  
to do so until I tell you to stop. We will be finished then. Just imagine a  
flow of energy going from you to the blue crystal and the crystal shall do  
the rest. To stop, merely stop visualizing. Now we begin."  
Raising both hands towards the crystal, Perfume effortlessly started  
filling the crystal with power by means of a tan colored beam of energy   
connecting her with the crystal. Miyabi was next and with a little effort  
managed an orangeish beam to the crystal. Masque and Lotion took longer to  
start, but soon candy-apple red and emerald green beams came from them  
respectively.   
Now it was Twister's turn.  
*Here goes.* She took a deep breath and started concentrating as she  
raised her hands into position. As soon as the imaginary conduit was created  
in her mind, Twister felt a slow, drawing away of energy and she saw a   
purple beam was connecting her to the sapphire colored crystal. Absently,   
she noticed that her's was the largest beam by a sizable amount with   
Perfume and Miyabi close seconds. Lotion's beam was slightly larger than   
Masque's which seemed to put the owner of the red beam off a bit.   
Meanwhile, the new crystal was starting to spin and glowing from a place   
deep inside it.   
For half an hour, the five let the crystal drain their mystic energies   
so that it could complete the purpose of its creation. Finally, the crystal,   
which was a spinning blur by now and shining brightly enough that the watchers  
had to turn their heads away, started to slow down and shine less brightly.  
"_Stop_!" cried Perfume as her beam quickly vanished. The others  
rapidly did the same. Watching the blue crystal, Perfume carefully waited   
until the spin stopped and the glow died to a faint luminescence before saying  
with a relieved sigh, "It is done. The new crystal is in place where the old  
crystal was when _it_ was put in. The evil is contained safely again."  
Walking towards the center again, she went on, "Now we must carefully dispose  
of the corrupted crystal..."  
An uneasy feeling that was familiar gripped Twister.  
*What?! What's wrong?* She tried focusing the feeling and noticed it  
came from straight ahead...in the direction Perfume was walking in. The   
feeling was getting awful strong my the time Perfume reached the center.  
Suddenly, realization struck.  
"The _crystal_!!" Twister shouted aloud as she instantly started   
running to a startled Perfume. Masque and Lotion were puzzled, but Miyabi  
understood Twister's sudden panic and she started forwards too. Twister   
was by Perfume when blood red cracks started to appear on the corrupted  
stone.   
By the time Miyabi reached them, the old crystal shattered.  
Not in a normal way, however, did the crystal break. Instead of   
exploding _outwards_, the shards of crystal were sucked _into_ a spot  
of evil red light, glowing malevolently where the heart of the corrupted   
crystal had been. The implosion's force was great near the center.   
Twister had to hold Perfume and Miyabi tightly to prevent them  
from being sucked in and consumed in the light. Masque and Lotion looked on  
in helpless horror, while barely staying where they were. If either tried to   
move towards the three, they might not be able to stop and thus doom   
them all.  
The red light pulsed once and, involuntarily, beams of power came  
from Perfume, Miyabi, and Twister, to connect with it.  
*It's that evil spirit bastard!* Twister thought as she struggled  
from the implosion with the two she was holding on. *It's corrupted and  
_taken over_ the old crystal. The crystal controlled _space_ and its sucking  
everything around it into some kind of portal created by the remaining energy  
of the old crystal. Couldn't prevent the new drain with _this_ as a   
distraction!* The red light was getting stronger and the blue crystal above  
it was very slowly coming down. *No! If _that's_ destroyed...* Feverishly  
Twister thought and came up with a desperate idea.   
*If _that_ thing can take over the crystal, then so can I! There's   
already a link, albeit unwillingly done, so...*  
Managing to focus as she held the other two in place, Twister  
concentrated on the angry red spot in the center of the effect.   
Gah. Watched too many Star Trek reruns.  
Demanded an ancient and  
angry mind who had primary control over the crystal.  
She  
started to battle for control over the energy of the old crystal.  
_The mind chuckled evilly.  
The other mind was too strong for her. In her other form she  
could have enhanced her mind to defeat him, but that was not possible now._

_ <_We_ shall see to that.> Called out two new minds.  
Twister got new hope.  
Perfume's mental voice chuckled. _

_Together, the three friendly minds forced the strong, but single  
mind slowly away from his control over the energy of the old crystal.  
Realizing that his hold was weakening,   
and that it would be gone before freedom would be gained, he howled in   
rage. Deciding on what to do, he did the one thing he could.   
Before they could try to stop it, the evil spirit gave a powerful  
command to the corrupted crystal's energy with which it was so familiar with.  
The implosion effect stopped and the three staggered as the force that was   
pulling them in disappeared. The red spot was quickly glowing brighter and  
Twister, from an accidental slip the spirit made in its rage, knew what was  
about to happen. Knowing she couldn't move quick enough, Twister instead  
flung Miyabi and Perfume mightily towards a stunned Masque and Lotion before  
the red energy struck.  
_Something_ swiftly flowed out of the center of the evil red glow  
and enveloped Twister in it's Otherness. The flow was erratic and caused  
Twister's mind to become chaotic as well. Memories and past experiences  
rushed by painfully and Twister's senses reeled at the onslaught.  
She screamed.  
Struggling to get her confused mind into some kind of order, Twister  
focused on one particular memory that felt stable enough to concentrate on.  
With most of the power left in her, she _threw_ that destination at the  
glowing red spot with all her might.   
The power that Twister had left was formidable, even after the  
new and old crystal's draining. The desperate unleashing of Twister's  
power released the red spot from the off-guard, evil spirit's control. The  
spot's color went from evil blood-red to purple. Unfortunately, the process  
that had started was unstoppable now and could only be redirected to the  
destination Twister, in her scattered frame of mind, had given it. Also,  
the now-purple spot was unstable as well. With a final burst of purple light,  
the purple spot and Twister, still encased in Otherness, vanished.  
All that was left in the center of the room was the softly glowing  
blue crystal.  
Miyabi, Perfume, and Masque, were speechless with shock.  
Lotion slowly fell to her knees and stared, with tears starting to  
form in her eyes, at where Twister had been last.  
Now just empty space._

_\---------------------------------------------------------------------------  
\--------------------------- End 'o story two ------------------------------  
\---------------------------------------------------------------------------  
\------------------ You want to shoot me now don't you? --------------------  
\---------------------------------------------------------------------------_

_Well, that's story two. I'm still writing story three, but I have to say  
that it's not the Ranma universe. Most of these stories I'll be trying  
something different in mind. Whether it's a particular series, adjusting  
tone, or just something I haven't done before._

_E-mail address is umsteff2@cc.umanitoba.ca_

_\--  
==============================================================================  
Darren Steffler a.k.a "Twister"- mail at   
==============================================================================_


	3. Twisted Path 3.1

Twister 

Argh! I decided to post these first two chapters of my third fanfic  
in order to GET MY BUTT IN GEAR! I'm being far too lazy....:)  
(I've had a few problems but I won't bother you with them.)

The BGC and Ranma is copyrighted. (Not by me ^_^ but I just wanted to  
put it in.)

And without further ado...

\------------------------------------------------------------------  
Twisted Path - Another Bubble Started.  
A Story Inspired by Rumiko Takahashi's Ranma 1/2  
and the Bubblegum Crisis.  
by Darren Steffler

This story is the third in the story of Twister, the young man   
changed by a force outside the universes.   
In the last story, Twister was helping to renew a spell keeping an  
evil spirit chained under a massive stone. However, once the new crystal  
was finished, the old crystal collapsed in an implosion by the will of the  
bound spirit. Twister, the professor of magic, Miyabi, and the mage of the  
village of the Amazons, Perfume, managed to prevent the spirit's escape.  
In revenge, the evil one caused the energy of the old corrupted crystal  
to envelop Twister to throw Twister uncontrollably out of the universe.  
Twister's thoughts became chaotic as a result but still managed to overthrow  
the spirit's control over the energy and give it the only clear destination  
she had at the moment as the process could not be stopped.   
Twister vanished from the Ranma universe in a mind-jarring thrust   
into the Void and began the journey to the destination she had given.  
And now the third story of Twister begins....

Chapter One  
\-----------

The city of Mega-Tokyo at night was a swarm of bright lights swimming  
in an ocean of shadows. Advertiser's billboards lit up the sides of buildings  
and neon signs glowed softly to attract customers. The monolithic Genom tower   
loomed over it all like a mountain of steely power.  
In an area where shadows were thicker than light, a lone neon sign   
hung on a building where people occasionally went in and out. Music from it  
drifted outside to softly lighten the street beyond. With the name 'Hot Legs',  
one couldn't immediately tell that this was a club with live bands playing  
inside, but one didn't need to with the music escaping into the streets.  
After the songs had stopped for a time, two figures emerged from the  
entrance to the club. They walked out together to stop underneath the  
light from a street lamp. Under the light, one could see that the two were  
both female. One had bright red hair and looked to be younger than her   
friend, whose hair was black. Both were good looking, though the red headed  
one looked cuter, but one could tell that they looked sightly worried   
about something.  
The red haired one sighed. "Priss doesn't seem to have gotten over  
her friend's death yet, has she, Linna?" She was dressed in a cute looking  
skirt and blouse with a stylish jacket overtop.   
"Well, _I_ don't blame her, Nene. I bet that creep Mason was involved  
in _my_ friend's death as well. I'm not sorry Sylia had to kill him,"  
Linna stated firmly. She herself wore pants with suspenders and a pink,   
striped, business-like shirt with a tie as she stood beside the smaller Nene.  
Nene shuddered as she remembered the scene from a few days ago;  
Sylia with her blade embedded in the Genom executive's neck.   
"I know that it was necessary...but I still didn't like it."  
Her friend and fellow Knight Saber softened a bit at Nene's reply.  
"He deserved it, Nene, but you're right. We didn't really have a choice though."  
Trying to change topics, Linna started talking about something else. "Priss   
still has a few more songs to do so I guess we should leave now. I need to   
check out the stock market information before going to sleep tonight anyway."  
Nene made a face. "You and your big money ideas, Linna!" she huffed.   
"You never succeed at it and you still keep on trying. You're money crazed,"   
Nene concluded, crossing her arms with a firm expression.  
Linna angrily turned to face her friend. "I don't see _you_ getting  
rich or succeeding at ADPolice, Little Miss Cyberpunk!" she retorted.  
Nene turned her head away and looked down an alley across the street.  
"That's beside the point and stop calling me that! _I'm_ not the one who..."  
Nene stopped suddenly as she saw something really strange happen in the  
alley she was looking at.  
Purple flames had appeared out of nowhere and were climbing higher  
into the sky than she was tall. No apparent source seemed to be feeding the  
odd flames as they illuminated the alley with their purple light. Of course,   
the flames were behind several bags of garbage that were sitting near the   
alley entrance. Nothing of where the blaze was centered at could be seen.  
Linna was waiting for Nene to continue, but saw the purple light   
reflected from Nene's body and that her friend was staring at something.   
Quickly, she turned her head to look, but the flames had disappeared as   
suddenly as they had came. This made Linna curious.   
"What were you looking at, Nene?"  
Looking puzzled, Nene shook her head, "I don't know. Something just  
happened in that alley I was looking at." After checking the street for   
traffic, Nene started walking quickly towards the alley. "Let's go see!"  
"Nene! We didn't know what's _in_ there!" Linna cried with a little   
panic as she walked reluctantly after Nene. She paused at the alley entrance   
and grimaced at the garbage piled up in the space between buildings. *Great.   
I'll have to follow her and my clothes will need to be dry cleaned.* When Linna  
heard Nene gasp and call to her to come in, she sighed and went to see what  
Nene had found. Moving carefully around the refuse, Linna warily came to where   
her friend was and looked down.   
She was surprised at what she saw lying at her feet.  
It was a young woman, maybe eighteen or so, with hair as red as Nene's.  
She looked a little shorter than Nene but looked, as Linna glanced briefly   
across the body, more...developed than her friend standing beside her. The   
clothing she wore didn't match the current fashions and the material from   
which it was made looked unusual but pleasing to the eye. The strange girl   
was breathing so she was alive. A sudden thought struck Linna and she bent   
down to carefully check a limp arm with her hand.  
Linna thought out loud as she inspected the arm. "Doesn't feel like  
a boomer," she muttered. "Seems like she has awfully firm muscles   
though." She looked up at a wide-eyed Nene. "So what do we do _now_?"  
Nene was indignant. "We help her of course! Let's get her out of here  
and try to wake her up." Grabbing one of the unconscious girl's arms, Nene  
managed to get it over her shoulders. "Help me, Linna!"  
Sighing, and resigned to having her clothes stained, Linna helped Nene  
bring the girl out of the alley and drop her gently down against a brick  
wall just outside the alley entrance. Nene knelt by the still out girl and  
tried shaking and slapping the girl gently to wake her up. Linna bent her knees  
and watched Nene attempt to wake the stranger. It seemed to be working for   
the girl was starting to groan softly.   
Suddenly, a loud noise behind them on the street startled Nene and   
Linna. They both stood up and whirled to face the source.  
A group of about ten Outrider motorcyclists had stopped on the street   
beside them and were grinning at Nene and Linna. The person who appeared  
to be the leader, stopped his engine, got off his bike, and casually walked   
over to stand brazenly in front of a nervous Nene and a neutral Linna. He had   
a lean and well muscled body, bleached hair, and had apparently lost his arms   
sometime in the past. What now replaced them were powerful-looking,   
robotic versions of the lost limbs.  
"Having a problem with your companion, girls?" the leader said as he  
grinned at the two. The stranger's groans and unconscious movements apparently   
made her seem to be drunk to the bikers.  
Linna spoke quickly before Nene could utter a reply, guessing correctly  
what the group thought about the girl they had found. "She's just had a bit   
too much to drink, that's all. We'll be okay. No need to be concerned.  
Really."  
The leader didn't move and just smiled at her. "Well, since you don't  
need our _help_. Why don't we keep you three...company," he leered at them.  
His biking buddies laughed roughly at that and the they got off their bikes   
to form a wide half-circle around the girls.  
"Let's show 'em a _real_ good time, Steelfist!" one Outrider shouted.  
The leader, Steelfist, laughed out loud and smiled broadly at the  
two girls standing in front of him. "Shall we dance?" His leer was now  
directed at Linna. "I could show you so _much_ fun tonight."  
Linna was a careful sort usually, but this crude and offensive Outrider  
had gotten her angry. She realized that if she could take out the leader then  
the rest would likely freeze long enough for her, Nene, and the girl, to  
get away. Smiling back at Steelfist, Linna said, "Not in a million years,   
_JERK_!" At the last word, she launched a punch towards his diaphragm to knock  
the breath out of him.  
Unfortunately, Steelfist had been prepared for something like this  
and a robotic arm swiftly grabbed her hand to stop the punch. Holding her fist  
tightly in his larger hand, he lifted her hand above her head just high enough  
so that she had no solid footing. Linna tried punching and kicking Steelfist,  
but she couldn't get much leverage without solid footing and so he calmly  
deflected each attack. Soon, Linna was panting tiredly and Steelfist was just  
amused.  
"You're good. I guess I should be _extra_ special to you." His gang   
hooted and laughed in anticipation.  
Nene finally spoke up in an attempt to sound authoritive.   
"Stop this! I'm an ADPolice officer!" she cried out.  
*Oh, _that_ will strike fear into their hearts, Nene,* Linna   
sarcastically thought as she panted for breath.  
The gang members took one look at Nene defiantly looking at them from  
her short stature and laughed long and hard. "We're soooo scared!" one of  
them chuckled loudly as Nene turned red with embarrassment.  
Now Linna spoke. "Just leave us alone!"  
Steelfist slapped her hard enough to put stars in her field of vision.  
"Now that's not being very _hospitable_. Is it, boys?" He smirked.  
A blur shot out from around Nene and punched a surprised Steelfist   
hard where Linna had been attempting to hit before. His breath exploded out of   
his mouth as he unconsciously released Linna's hand from his grip. Linna   
started to fall but was supported by someone beside her. She looked up and   
saw with a quite a bit of surprise that it was that strange girl she and Nene   
had found. The girl walked Linna back to an equally surprised Nene and gently   
let Linna get back on her own feet before turning to face the recovering   
gang leader.  
Steelfist had finally gotten his breath back and was not amused   
anymore. His gang was no longer laughing at the moment either, but they  
recognized that their leader wasn't done yet.  
Glowering angrily at the young woman who was now calmly regarding him,  
Steelfist spat out, "So. One of you wants to play _rough_ I see. I guess  
I'll have to teach this _bitch_ a lesson!"  
Unafraid, the unknown girl grinned. "Teach what? Stupidity 101?" She   
glanced at the other gang members. "I see you brought the rest of the class   
along too." Behind her, a shaken Linna and a wide-eyed Nene wondered why this   
strange girl was trying to get her opponents angry.  
The gang was muttering angrily as Steelfist's face turned an   
interesting shade of red. Bellowing angrily, he lunged at the stranger with  
arms extended to grab her. The stranger had other plans. She  
gracefully jumped up just enough to avoid the grasping hands and stepped on  
Steelfist's head as she flipped over to land behind him. He stopped his rush  
and turned around to face the stranger again.  
"Sorry to step all over you like that," she chuckled.  
Realizing that pure anger would not work in this situation, the gang   
leader cautiously advanced towards the strange girl until they were a few feet  
apart. Then he struck swiftly with all the speed his robotic arms could   
muster.   
To little effect.  
Every swing he made, the young woman merely dodged out of the way with  
centimeters to millimeters of space to spare. "Breezy tonight, isn't it?" she  
calmly replied to Steelfist's frustrated, sweaty face.  
Nene whispered to Linna, "Are you _sure_ she wasn't a boomer?"  
"Of course I am!" Linna whispered back. "She just knows martial arts  
like me. I can tell." After watching the fight a bit more, Linna added, "She's  
_extremely_ good though. I wonder where she learned how to do that..."  
Soon, Steelfist stopped his attack, panting heavily. He hadn't touched  
the girl once and she was still calmly standing before him, smiling slightly.  
He caught his breath as his wary gang watched from the sidelines and exploded  
all his angry frustration out in two words.   
"You _slut_!"  
The smile faded from the stranger's face and was replaced by a sudden  
burst of white-hot rage. Steelfist noticed this and stretched out to grab her,  
hoping the anger the girl was showing would distract her long enough to grab  
her. Then it would all be over.  
It was over all right, but not for the girl. In a blur, one of the  
girl's shoed feet came up and hit the elbow of Steelfist's grasping right arm.   
And kept going until it had completely severed the biometallic arm at the   
joint. The resulting feedback from the shattered arm caused Steelfist to   
scream in agony and then faint, unconscious, to the ground. The rest of the   
gang looked on in shock as their mighty leader fell to the ground, defeated.  
"Pick him up and _leave_," ground out the stranger who had accomplished  
the deed. The gang quickly picked up the fallen man, got on their motorcycles  
and left, not wishing to take on someone who easily took out Steelfist.   
The stranger gazed in the direction they left in. "I guess they   
should call him 'SteelStump' now." She sighed tiredly as the anger fled as   
fast as it had came. The young woman walked back to the other two standing on   
the street.   
"Are you okay?" she asked Linna with some concern.  
"I'm fine. I was just shaken, that's all." Linna looked curiously at  
the person who had asked the question. "Who _are_ you anyway?"   
Hearing that, the stranger rubbed the back of her neck in slight   
confusion.   
"Um... I was sorta hoping _you_ could tell _me_." 

Chapter Two  
\-----------

Two startled faces stared at the stranger, making her uncomfortable.  
"You don't _know_?" Linna exclaimed in disbelief.  
The questioned shrugged her shoulders. "I can't remember much.  
It's all a jumble. The only thing I recall clearly is waking up over there,"  
she nodded at the spot where Nene and Linna had placed her previously, "and   
seeing you in trouble. I didn't like what was going on so I butted in. Sorry   
about interrupting your fight there."   
"No trouble," Linna thoughtfully replied while rubbing the sore hand   
that had been held by Steelfist. "How did you do that anyway?"  
The stranger sighed. "I'm not really sure. Just something that   
happened instinctively when I attacked that guy."  
"I thought you were _great_!" Nene enthused and Linna rolled her eyes.  
"What you did was incredible! Better than Linna and I _know_ she's good."  
The stranger was a little taken aback at Nene's energetic response.   
"Ah...thanks. Who are _you_?"  
"I'm Nene and this is my friend Linna." Nene frowned thoughtfully as  
she looked at the stranger. "Are you _sure_ you can't remember your name?  
Maybe you should give yourself another one until you do."  
The stranger smiled thankfully at Nene. "Good idea. It would be bad  
if you could only say 'Hey you!' to me." She concentrated a bit as she thought  
about the problem of a name. *Hmmm... What should I call myself? Brittany? Nah.  
Gloria? Phtt. Dar...Darlene? That sounds faintly familiar for some reason.*  
Thinking a bit more, she finally came up with a last name.   
"How about Darlene Stefanson?"  
"Good. Great. That'll do." Linna looked nervously at both ends of  
the street. "Maybe we'd better get moving...in case those Outriders come again.  
I don't relish another encounter with those creeps." The other two agreed  
and they walked towards Linna's van that was parked close by, but was oh so   
far away a mere ten minutes ago.  
Linna paused before opening the door. "Do you remember where you  
live?"  
The now _Darlene_ shook her head. "Nope." Thoughtfully, she added,  
"Come to think of it, I feel like I'm new around here for some reason."  
"Great," Linna sighed as she opened the van.  
"She can stay with _me_, Linna! I don't mind. I can use the computers  
at work to find out who Darlene really is too."  
Greatful, Darlene smiled warmly at Nene. "Thank you, Nene." Though, as   
she wrapped a seatbelt around herself, Darlene had the oddest feeling that  
Nene wouldn't get anywhere with her computers.  
While Linna started up the van, she remarked, "We almost thought you  
were a Boomer when you were fighting that creep."  
"What's a Boomer?" Darlene inquired.  
The shocked silence she got as a reply told her that she apparently  
had a lot to remember.

Linna dropped Darlene and Nene off in front of Nene's place before  
going off to _her_ own home after saying thanks again to Darlene.  
They watched Linna drive off before going inside, Nene leading the  
way as she opened the door with her key.   
As she stopped to take of her shoes, Nene realized what a mess she had   
left everything in today. She had slept in that morning and after work Nene had   
barely had time to change before going out with Linna. The result of both   
hastily done maneuvers had left things in a considerable disarray.  
Feeling a little embarrassed, Nene welcomed her guest in. "Um...sorry  
about the mess. I didn't have a chance to clean up today."  
Darlene smiled at her host. "It's not that bad." Her stomach growled   
and now it was _her_ turn to be embarrassed as Nene giggled at the sound.   
"Oops."  
"I'll get something from the fridge for you." Smiling, Nene walked   
into the kitchen and pulled out a cake that had one slice already taken   
out of it. "I shouldn't eat this anyway, but," she sighed, "I can never   
resist."  
Grinning, Darlene watched Nene slice a piece out of the cake. "You   
don't hear any complaints from _me_ right now." She pinched her waist and   
blinked in surprise. "I think I could _use_ a few pounds actually. I wonder   
why I have zero fat practically. That's not healthy."  
Looking envious, Nene gave Darlene the slice. "Lucky you. Enjoy!"  
The speed Darlene finished off the piece astonished Nene. "You _must_ have   
been hungry."  
Staring at the now-empty plate, Darlene had to agree. "That felt _so_  
good though," she said and sighed in contentment at her silent stomach.  
Nene smiled inwardly. *I've found someone with the same liking for   
sweets as me! I don't feel as bad now.*  
Looking around the apartment, Darlene spied something in a corner that   
caught her eye. "That your system? Looks nice."  
"You know computers?"   
Frowning, Darlene struggled to remember. "A little...at least I think   
I do. Though I don't remember seeing anything like that system before. Hmm..."  
With growing interest, she examined the computer setup in the corner.  
Nene was even happier now. *She likes computers too!* she thought   
before asking Darlene, "Want me to show you it?"  
"Sure! This should be fun," replied a grinning Darlene.

Much later, Darlene found herself getting ready to take a shower. She  
smiled as she undressed at the thought of Nene's enthusiastic coaching. To both   
their surprise, Darlene had picked up the lingo rapidly and had only made a   
few mistakes on her first try. A little later, in a moment of worry,   
Darlene had depressed herself by thinking out loud that if Nene couldn't   
find out who she was then she would likely have trouble living in   
Mega-Tokyo since she wasn't a citizen. Nene had replied confidently that   
it wouldn't be a problem. She had raised a questioning eyebrows at   
that comment, but Nene had merely smiled mysteriously and didn't go into   
any detail.  
*By the way she handles that system of hers, I wouldn't be surprised  
if she was an expert in many things on the computer. And maybe some of those   
things not quite so legal. Oh well, I guess I don't have much choice.*   
As she undressed, Darlene was puzzled at the undergarments she wore,  
or rather, the _lack_ of undergarments in regards to her upper torso. The  
boxers she wore under her pants confused her even more.  
*The lack of a bra I might be able to understand, but these...? Maybe  
I was a tomboy of sorts. Ah heck, I'll puzzle it out later. Right now, a   
nice hot shower should do wonders.*  
Darlene walked into the shower and turned on the cold water first so  
she wouldn't burn herself. Quickly, she turned on the hot water to dispell the  
chill of the shower. Luckily, she got a nice temperature first try.  
Suddenly, the shower seemed smaller and Darlene felt...odd. Looking  
down, he realized _why_ and memory roared in to fill his shocked mind as his  
mind's perfect memory in this form re-established itself.  
"GAAAHHHHH!"

Nene blinked and turned her head at the sound of the shower-muffled  
shout. She walked quickly over to the bathroom door and shouted just loud   
enough to be heard inside.  
"Darlene? Are you all right?"  
There was some barely audible movement inside and Nene heard a   
startled gasp as the sounds from the shower changed subtly.  
She was getting concerned now.  
"Darlene! What's wrong?"  
"N-nothing!" Darlene's voice cried out and Nene sighed with relief.  
"J-just h-having trouble w-with the h-hot and c-c-cold water! I t-think I  
have i-it now!"  
"Ok! Take as long as you want!" Nene said loudly before walking away   
from the door. She shook her head as she did so, recalling briefly what she   
had thought she had heard.  
*She sounded like a man the first time.* Nene sighed as she contemplated  
that. *If I'm hearing things like that, then maybe I should really start  
looking for a boyfriend. Could it be withdrawal symptoms?*  
She giggled at that last thought, amused by the absurdity of it as   
Nene went back to what she had been doing before.

*Whew!*  
By adjusting the water controls, Darlene returned the freezing shower   
to a nice warm temperature, which triggered the change to male form again.  
*_Jeez_ that was close!!* Darlene, who remembered being Twister now,   
thought. Much less frantically than a minute ago as well. *But thank deities   
for perfect memory! Now _how_ did I get into the Bubblegum Crisis universe?*  
Thinking back to that attempt of the evil spirit to chuck him into  
a place where he would never come back, Twister recalled what he had done  
in his confused state of mind in order to change destinations. He groaned  
mentally, but agreed that, in the state of mind he had been in at the time,  
it was the only thing possible then.  
*I just _had_ to have a scene from the BGC as the only stable thing  
in my mind.* Twister sighed in resignation. *Great. Pure luck that I wound up  
being near Nene and Linna. I'll have to see if I can get enough power in order  
to get back. That means money since I don't want to eat Nene out of house   
and home.* He smiled at how cute Nene could be. *I have to find a way to get  
money..._and_ a place to experiment.* Twister realized as he had never  
done something like crossing universes by means of the void before. *Necessity  
is the mother of invention,* he sighed mentally. *Yes, I'll definitely need  
a place to experiment in case my first try flunks out.* He closed his eyes  
in contemplation. *Correction, make that _only_ and very, very, _very_   
carefully done try. I do _not_ want to wind up somewhere _totally_ unfamiliar   
to me.*   
Twister shook his head.   
*This could take a while.*

After using some cold water to change back to being female, Darlene  
exited the bathroom to see Nene preparing a mattress on the floor for her.  
Looking up, Nene frowned thoughtfully at Darlene.  
"Hmm. I guess you'll need some clothes and stuff." Smiling now,  
Nene added, "I have a friend who could help you with _some_ of that problem."  
Darlene tried not to wince as she knew Nene likely meant Sylia and  
that Sylia owned...a lingerie store. She realized that she was not likely to  
be able to avoid shopping for ladies clothing with Nene and Darlene _needed_   
Nene to show her around.  
*Just perfect,* Darlene sighed mentally. *Oh well, I guess I don't   
have much choice. Hmm. I have a feeling I'm going to be thinking that phrase  
a lot.*  
Not wanting to have Nene foot a large bill, Darlene pulled out a   
small object from an inner pocket and lobbed it over to a surprised Nene,  
who luckily grabbed it.  
"I found that and a few others like it in a pocket of mine. Do you  
think it's worth much?" To herself, she added, *Good thing I decided to  
always carry spares in case I need them. Which is definitely the case here.*  
Nene's eyes widened as she looked at the clear crystal she had caught.  
"I think this is a _diamond_!" Looking up at Darlene with wide eyes, she   
asked, "You said you have more?"   
Darlene tossed the other three, larger, diamonds to her.   
Nene's eyes widened even more as she looked at the sparkling gems in   
her hand.  
"Well, since you mentioned buying clothes... Do you think _those_ will  
cover it?" Darlene queried, a smirk threatening to break out on her face.  
Startled, Nene smiled at her. "I can afford it, Darlene. Besides,  
I feel I owe you for saving us from those Outriders. _These_," she held out  
the diamonds, "I can get Linna to sell if you want. For extra money."   
Wistfully, she looked down at the diamonds in her palm. "These would look very  
pretty on rings." To herself, Nene thought, *Or maybe Sylia would be able to   
get a better price for these...*  
Kicking herself mentally, Darlene remembered what Nene _did_.  
*Stupid! She's a Knight Saber! I _don't_ think that pays minimum wage.   
Of course she can afford it! But then, I shouldn't know that so it's all   
right. Still... I do think I need more money than what _those_ will get. How   
can I...* An idea suddenly flashed in her mind and she began to smile. *Now   
_there's_ a thought. If it works, and I think it will since I think I have   
better control now, then I'd better not tell Nabiki about this. Ever. And in   
truth I don't think I can do it for long without becoming noticed, but I   
should have enough for something else I have in mind.*   
Casually, Darlene asked Nene, "I think I faintly remember being very  
good at guessing the stock market and I played it as a game once.  
Do you think I could get Linna to use the money from those," Darlene pointed  
at the diamonds, "to use in the stock market?"  
Making a face, Nene objected to this plan. "Linna and now you too?   
She always loses money from that stupid market!"  
Raising an eyebrow, Darlene chuckled. "Hmm... Maybe I'll have more   
luck than her."   
Nene looked dubiously at her.  
*And a certain psionic power that I have should do wonders as well.*

The next week was fun, Twister had to admit. Nene was a fun  
companion to shop with, never mind that they were shopping for women's  
clothing. She also got quite a bit of money from those diamonds, which   
'Darlene' promptly gave to Linna with some directions on what to do with it.  
What Nene and Darlene really laughed at was the fact that, when Linna started   
following Darlene's directions for using the money made from the diamond's  
sale, Darlene was _making_ money on the stock market, while Linna lost it.  
This frustrated Linna to no end, but she followed her own instincts stubbornly.  
Fortunately, the frustration was softened by the fact that, as Darlene's   
agent, Linna was getting 10% of the money Darlene made.  
Twister's idea for the stock market had worked. In male form, when  
Nene was at work, Twister would get a stock market listing for the day and  
managed to successfully get an idea of _which_ stocks were going up or down   
by means of his precognitive power. He had never used it before like this   
because he had had no need to and it was cheating in a way. Scratch that,   
cheating _period_.  
It could also land him in a heap of trouble if done too long.  
At the end of the week, Nene had kept true to her word and they had   
gone to Sylia's to get some...things. Darlene had an   
uncontrollable blush all through the time that they were there.   
Sylia found this very amusing when Nene introduced her to Darlene.   
Sylia was a very pleasant person to talk to. Intelligent, subtle,  
and _very_ perceptive, which gave Darlene a challenge as she hid the fact  
that her memory had returned. She was pleased that Darlene had saved Linna   
and Nene, but also curious as to _how_ she had managed it. Dodging Sylia's   
questions was difficult, but Darlene managed to come out okay, which intrigued   
Sylia even more.   
Mackie had been at the cash register all the while, watching with   
interest as this girl, who looked about the same age as Nene, avoided most of   
his sister's questions with some skill. When she and Nene came up to purchase   
the items they had selected, he smiled at a blushing-renewed Darlene since she   
seemed to be close to his age.   
Darlene had noticed his interest and nervously avoided eye contact.   
She was embarrassed enough as it was.

Later that day, a smiling Nene and a disgruntled Linna decided to   
bring Darlene to 'Hot Lips' to meet Priss.   
Some of the songs Priss sang that night were familiar to Darlene  
as they had been on the animated tapes of this universe she had watched a long  
time ago. However, with _Priss_ actually singing them and seeing her _live_  
on stage, Darlene _really_ enjoyed the performance. She shouted along with  
Nene, Linna, and the rest of the crowded place. They waited until Priss was  
done for the night before meeting up with her.  
When Nene burst out who Darlene was, Priss grinned.  
"So. _You're_ the one who broke those fake arms of that asshole   
Steelfist who was lording over everyone around here. Couldn't stand the  
bastard when he was in here once." She slapped Darlene hard on the back,  
surprising Darlene and causing her to stagger a bit. Priss snorted. "Hasn't   
been out and around since it got out that such a small, _cute_ girl beat him."   
Regaining her balance, Darlene arched an eyebrow at the taller woman  
standing beside her. "That hard to believe, huh?" Smiling sweetly, Darlene  
had a challenging look in her eyes as she caught Priss's attention. "Care  
to arm-wrestle with this small, cute girl?"  
Surprised, Priss looked down at Darlene and smirked. "You sure about  
that?"  
Darlene waved at an empty table with chairs. "Why not? It should  
prove a point." She sat down and placed her right arm into position.  
Sitting opposite Darlene and mirroring positions, Priss grasped  
the empty hand and got ready.   
Darlene mentally chuckled. *Priss, I've fought guys, in the last   
universe I was in, who go through walls and trees and can still stand. You   
think you're gonna win?*  
*I don't think so.*  
"What point is that?" Priss replied confidently.  
"That looks aren't everything. Go!"  
Automatically, Priss had started the contest, but only gained a  
little ground before stopping suddenly. Surprised at the strong resistance,  
Priss increased the pressure. Darlene matched it, brought their hands back into  
starting position, and slowly, but inevitably, dragged a going all out Priss  
towards the table's surface on her side until they touched it and stopped.  
Priss held her sore arm and glared at Darlene, who was stretching   
her arm and smiling cheerfully, while Nene and Linna stifled laughter. The   
tired singer transfered her glare to her two fellow Knight Sabers and threw   
up her hands.  
"Fine! I guess I deserved that for underestimating my opponent."  
Darlene got up and extended a hand for Priss. "No hard feelings?"  
"Hah!" Priss grabbed the hand and shook it vigorously. "Anyone who  
can beat _me_ and friends with _those_ two is a friend to me too." She  
glared again at a chuckling Linna. "Will you _stop_ that?"  
With a mischievous glint in her eye, Darlene winked at Priss before  
turning to Linna. "By the way, Linna... How am I doing so far anyway?"  
Linna's laugh stopped abruptly and was replaced with a rather sour  
face that surprised Priss. "I'm not sure, I stopped checking after the second   
day and just let my program decide the best way to follow your suggestions."   
She pulled out her ever-present computer to check the market reports.  
Now _Priss_ began to laugh. "You're doing better than _Linna_  
is and you just _got_ here??" The laughter was becoming uncontrollable and   
threatening to bring Nene and Darlene along with it as well.  
"All _right_ already! It's not _that_ funny!" Linna shouted as  
she was almost finished with computing the total amount Darlene had now. "Okay   
Darlene, what you've got is...is..." Her mouth hung open in shock as she  
registered what was on her screen.  
Curiously, Darlene came over to look at the display Linna was staring  
at. "How much _is_ it, Linna? It can't be _that_ much can..." She blinked at  
the amount printed on the screen. "Hm. A little more than I thought." Looking   
at the screen again, she amended, "Make that a _lot_ more. Guess I'd better   
quit while I'm ahead then. My luck can't hold out for too long."  
Dazed, Linna asked her, "You're quitting?"  
"Uh huh. I'm stopping while I'm ahead. Beats me how I did it   
though..."   
Yaright.   
Sighing with satisfaction, Darlene went on. "I think I'll try opening   
up a business somewhere. I'm getting bored even though the computer Nene has   
is interesting." Smiling at Nene, she added, "I've had a great time with you,   
Nene, but I _do_ want to have a home of my own. I've been crowding you too   
much for the last few days anyway." To herself Darlene added, *And I can stop   
avoiding looking at you undressing for bed every night. Bloody well nerve   
wrecking.*  
"No you haven't!" Nene cried out and then smiled. "I can understand  
how you feel though. I'll miss those delicious breakfasts you made though,"   
she sighed sorrowfully.  
"That's Nene for you, stomach first as always," Priss commented,  
sourly amused.  
Nene looked outraged as the other three girls laughed.

"This is odd."  
Mackie looked over at where his sister was working. Sylia was intently  
staring at a bio-readout display and it was a measure of her puzzlement  
that she had actually spoken what was on her mind aloud.  
"What's up, sis?"  
With a frown, Sylia sat up straight in her chair and continued to look  
at the screen as she answered Mackie.  
"Remember those hidden sensors we installed in the store after that  
combat boomer destroyed the front?" Without waiting for a reply, Sylia  
continued, "I used them for a quick scan on that new friend of Linna and  
Nene's."  
Mackie blinked. "Why did you do that?"   
"Earlier this week Nene gave me some diamonds to sell that her new   
friend apparently had on her person." Sylia nodded at Mackie's surprise.  
"Not exactly something one would expect to have someone carrying around. But  
when checking to make sure that they were real diamonds, I found out that  
they were much more than that."   
Sylia paused.  
"They were as free of impurities as I have ever seen or heard about."  
Considering that, Mackie queried, "Man-made?"  
"Likely. I bought them myself as I could definitely use such material  
for our own personal use."  
Growing concern was beginning to form on Mackie's face. "But...if they  
were _made_ then...could that Darlene be a boomer? To use as a trap?"  
Sylia sighed. "That was my first thought and hence the use of the  
scanners. However," Sylia glanced at the readouts again, "she is not a boomer."  
"Then what...?"  
"The bio-readings are...odd to say the least. She _is_ human, I think,  
but it looks as if she has been...altered somehow. I couldn't get much with  
the scanners in the store."  
"Altered? What do you think it means, sis?"  
"I'm not sure, Mackie. I don't think she is a threat, but I think  
we shouldn't avoid the possibility that she might _be_ one." Sylia reached  
out and turned off the puzzling display of readings.  
"I don't _think_ she is, but I'll make a few descret inquiries to see   
if anything _is_ going on. Time will tell."  
Mackie nodded. "Ok, sis."  
*Yes, time always tells us all,* Sylia thought.   
*Eventually.*

Chapter Three  
\-------------

It took a week of searching and Nene giving some secondhand advice  
from Sylia, but eventually Twister finally found a nice looking store for   
sale. The primary reason for choosing it was the large living area on the   
second floor. Nene and Linna helped move the clothes she had bought to   
the new place and went with her to buy some furniture for the place.  
As for the store itself, it was largely empty with bare shelving  
but that didn't worry Twister much, especially with such a _large_ metal  
scrap yard relatively close by for material to TK into various stuff. He   
had also bought some common items from dealers to fill the racks when   
the store was ready.  
Twister, as Darlene, had gone directly to Sylia for advice and   
information on how get all the financial dealing done and Sylia, grateful   
for the chance to study Darlene and her intentions more closely, seemed more   
than happy to help. Various other details dealing with the store occupied   
Twister's time and it was almost Christmas by the time he was done.  
However, the store wasn't the only thing Twister worked on. A secret  
place was needed for experimenting with various spells. Quickly   
eliminating the city to hide anything, Twister decided to _make_ a place   
to work in just outside city limits and _deep_ underground. Tunneling   
with TK and teleporting the rock to scattered regions took a lot of energy.   
It was good practice for Twister tried freezing and heating the rock   
rapidly to dig, as well as cutting with TK. He also used the   
Dragonsword to cut through rock; to see if it was any better or not. It   
had been with him when he had arrived but Twister hadn't thought much of   
the, then, knife-sized sword before he got his memory back. He   
hadn't any occasion before to use it but this task seemed to fit the   
bill. It _was_ pretty darn sharp for even an iron golem had been cut to   
pieces by it. Stone was easier.  
Soon, he had a hole suitably deep enough to start.

*Whew! This is _work_ even without using hands!*  
Twister stood at the bottom of the shaft he had spent hours digging.  
It was damp, but not so much as to trigger the change. He had packed the   
earth and rock of the tunnel to prevent water seepage and the local rock was   
fairly dry so water wasn't a problem. When packing hadn't worked he had   
managed to melt the rock to keep the tunnel intact. Light was provided by a   
flashlight in his right hand.  
*Though, I'd better seal the opening so that rain can't fill it up   
later,* he mused. *Fortunately, I have means to make what I want without   
spending days on it. Besides, I haven't used any magic since I got here.*  
With that thought, Twister pulled out a thermos from the packback he   
had brought for this purpose and used the water carried within to change  
into female form.  
*I don't need a very large place maybe a room or two...* Visualizing  
what she wanted, Darlene cast her spell.

"Earth and stone now give me space,  
A place to work, a place to pace,  
Compress together, enhance it's strength,  
Walls standing firm to hold it's length."

Darlene held her hands on the cool walls of the tunnel as the spell  
was performed. Purple light spread from where her hands were in contact   
and soon the entire bottom of the shaft glowed with a bright violet color.   
Darlene poured a fair bit of power into the spell to make sure it did the   
job. She wasn't sure how much was needed but better safe than sorry. When she   
stopped, Darlene stepped back into the center of the circular floor and looked   
at the glowing walls carefully.  
Sure enough, the floor she was standing on was smooth now, instead  
of merely being a roughly level surface. The beginnings of a ceiling were  
starting to show as the walls of the shaft slowly moved away from her in all   
directions.  
*Great! And the rock is being compressed _into_ the floor, walls, and  
ceiling so it will have all the strength it needs and I won't have to worry  
about it collapsing.* Darlene yawned suddenly and looked at her watch.  
*Jeez but it's late. Guess I'll seal up the tunnel and leave. Better open it  
before coming back though or I might be sucking vacuum due to the compressing   
rock and all that new empty space.* Darlene got the other thermos from her   
pack, changed back into male form, and teleported to the surface to seal the   
entrance.  
If Twister had stayed a few minutes longer he would have seen the  
bright purple glow begin to pulse rapidly.   
And increasingly chaotic.

Two days passed before Twister was free enough from getting the store  
set up to return to see how the spell had worked. It wasn't anything that  
vital so he was in no rush.  
Appearing in a sheltered area, Twister eventually walked over to the   
spot where he had sealed the entrance to the tunnel.  
*Time to pop the cork. Still...I guess there shouldn't be _that_   
much difference in air pressure. After all, the area I visualized wasn't   
that large and there should be lots of air in the long tunnel I made. Oh,   
well.*  
Concentrating, Twister focused on the stone blocking the entrance and  
used his TK to unseal it and then teleported it a short dista....  
WWWHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOSSSSSHHHHHH!!!!!!!!  
"WHAT THE HECK?!" Twister shouted in his startlement as a massive  
suction threatened to drag him into the dark pit he had uncovered. He was   
pulled forwards a few feet before he used his psionic powers to stay put  
and not fall into the tunnel. Slowly, the rush of air abated and then quickly  
died, leaving Twister very much surprised.  
*I didn't think _that_ much air would be sucked in. That was over  
two minutes at least! Must've _really_ misjudged the air needed. I'd better  
go down now and take a look.* With that last thought, he teleported to the   
spot he had last been standing in the tunnel.  
It was totally dark, but Twister was ready for he had enchanted a  
diamond he had made to produce a very bright light. It was much more powerful  
than the flashlight he had used before and less bulky. He got a shock when  
the light from the gem, when pulled out of it's cover, illuminated the   
surrounding area.  
"What the...?" Twister whispered in amazement. "This...can't be  
right."  
Instead of the normal sized, square room of about fifteen feet or so  
he had visualized while casting the spell, there was a slightly oval room  
about twenty feet wide and thirty feet long. Also, on _three_ walls there were  
seemingly passageways to _hallways_! He had only imagined _one_ for an extra   
room! Numbly, Twister walked towards one of the walls where an arch-like   
opening seemed to beckon. As he traveled along the long passageway, he noticed  
that a purple light flickered at the end.  
*The spell's still going?!? Oh, FARK!*  
Twister burst into a run and quickly came upon a sight that further  
shocked his stunned mind.  
"Holy...."  
He was in another chamber, but the previous one was tiny compared  
to the vast, empty space that the spell had opened in the rock. Twister  
numbly guessed it to be the size of an aircraft hangar for really, really,   
_really_ big planes.  
*Good thing I dug deep. The walls must be stronger than frigging   
_battle armor_ if all that rock was compressed into them. And the spell...*  
The mentioned spell was no longer the nice, tame purple glow that had  
been his last memory of it. The far wall looked like what the surface of the  
sun must look like, if it were possible to get that close, to see with the  
naked eye. With a purple light filter, that is. Fiery tendrels snaked out   
of the blazing sheet of sickly-looking, violet fire, only to dive back into the  
mystical inferno.   
This was _not_ good.  
*How the heck can I stop the spell if I don't know what went wrong  
for _this_?!* Twister cautiously moved towards the still far away wall.  
*None of my spells ever did anything like _this_, especially when I thought  
it would be a fairly simple task. What happened to it?*  
He was three-quarters of the way to the flame wall, still wondering   
what to do, when suddenly one of the purple tendrels leaped straight _at_  
Twister. Reflexively, he flung up a hand to ward of the flame since he was   
still too stunned to do anything else.  
The flame disappeared into his palm. With no effect.  
Twister almost kicked himself. *Argh. It's _magic_. It only _looks_  
like real fire and I'm immune to magic now.* An idea started to form  
in his mind. *And the flame disappeared when it touched me...*   
He began to smile.  
*What about the whole shabang? Let's find out.*  
Just in case, Twister removed his shirt before advancing for the wall  
with his arms stretched out ahead of him. One tendril, and then more, started   
flying towards him, only to be vanish into his arms. Finally, he reached the  
wall and placed his palms upon the inferno.  
It was like an oil fire in reverse at that point. The flames on the  
wall, akin to the air above when Twister had unplugged the entrance to the   
tunnel, rushed into his hands as if they were a vacuum for magic. Which, in  
a way, Twister supposed he was to this out of control spell. All the  
flames were soon gone and the only light was that of the gem. Not feeling   
safe yet, Twister began to run towards the enormous chamber's entrance.  
There _had_ been two other hallways in the main room.

Whereas the first tunnel had led to one massive room, the other two  
had made many smaller ones. They had even connected at some points. Some  
rooms had had the spell still going and some not. Regardless, he had   
stopped counting rooms at fifteen and had hurried the pace at that point.  
After finding, and disposing of, all the remains of his chaotic spell,  
Twister returned to the first room he had appeared in.  
*Whew, all gone! But what made it do all this?* He stared at the still  
brightly glowing light in his hands. *I did this recently after the first spell  
so why is this gem working just fine? Maybe...because I _enchanted_ the rock?  
So this spell is _tied_ to the rock, whereas the other wasn't? If that's the   
case...then the first light spell I learned should prove my theory.* Getting   
a thermos, Twister changed and cast the spell which formed a ball of light.  
Several minutes went by before the globe of light above Darlene's head  
started to pulsate.  
*Uh oh.* Darlene quickly changed back with the other thermos and  
stuck a hand into the beginning to flame light. It vanished into  
Twister's hand.  
He pondered this. *So I can _enchant_ things only. Otherwise, the   
spell goes haywire. I'll have to find out why...but not right now.*   
Finally, Twister mentally went over all the rooms he had accidentally   
created. He was shocked at the _size_ of the place. *Gah! Overkill city!   
I don't think I needed quite _that_ much room. I'll have to map it all   
later to figure out what to do with it. Just great.*   
He sighed ruefully.   
*At least I can enchant something so it can avoid detection.   
Whoopie. Oh, well, I have _lots_ of room to play with now.*

Twister used his female form to conceal the now-extensive system of   
rooms because if anyone were to search, the huge, hollowed out areas would   
surely be detected. When done, the spell made the newly created complex look   
only like solid rock from would-be sensors outside. Hopefully.   
It was also time for Darlene's new store to open for business, which  
was fitting in a way. As a celebration idea, Twister made dragon statues to   
sell in the arts store like the ones he had made a long, at least it seemed   
long to Twister, time ago.  
The new friends Darlene had made were invited to the quiet opening.

"I can't _wait_ to see Darlene's store! She's kept it such a surprise.  
Aren't _you_ excited Priss?" Nene exclaimed enthusiastically at a bored Priss.  
They were both in Linna's van as Linna drove them to the new store.  
"Yeah, yeah, Nene." Priss turned her head to the window. "It's just  
some boring art all the same."  
Linna spoke up before Nene could respond to Priss's comment.   
"We're here." She stopped the car and they walked out to the front of   
the store.  
The store's name was 'Flights of Fantasy'. A sampling of the store's  
merchandise was displayed in the front windows but you could not see inside  
the store itself.  
Priss gave a bored look at the stuff displayed in front as Linna and  
Nene looked excitedly at the various items shown. The singer had seen all this  
sort of stuff before when she was younger and a little more interested in   
this sort of thing. One thing displayed, however, caught her eye and her   
boredom dissipated as she walked closer to the glass barrier to look   
closer at it.  
It was a small but incredibly detailed statue, about a foot high, of  
a Western style dragon that looked ready to attack an invisible enemy. That  
such a vivid impression was given surprised Priss as she studied the statue.  
Nene and Linna noted their companion's interest with some amazement,   
Priss didn't usually like 'artsy stuff' as she called it. They came over to   
look at what Priss found so compelling and were also surprised at the   
statue's detail.  
"Oh, wow! It almost looks alive!" Nene breathed in wonder.  
"Must be expensive," Linna commented as she silently agreed with Nene.  
"I wonder where Darlene found _that_. Never seen that sort of thing  
before. Must be new."  
Tearing away her eyes from the statue, Priss offhandedly said, "I'm  
impressed with it. I doubt she has more than one though." She strode towards  
the store's entrance and walked in through the door. Nene and Linna   
walking quickly behind her to keep up. After they entered, the two behind   
were startled when Priss exclaimed something and quickly backed up into   
them . Looking around Priss, the two started instinctively backing up as well.  
The store had a cave-like appearance now since Twister had decided  
that plain walls and shelfs weren't likely to be very interesting for   
customers. What he had done was use psionics to carefully coat metal   
around and on the holding racks, walls, and ceiling. Small, colored   
crystals decorated the shaped metal. They were embedded in it in colorful   
swirls around the store's interior by ways that caught the eye. The   
light from the store's ceiling lamps reflected colorfully in the   
crystals. Twister had made the store's slightly darkened interior itself a   
piece of artwork in itself.  
_That_, however, was not what had badly shaken Priss when she entered.  
In the middle of the store, staring right at the entrance, was a _much_   
larger dragon than the one displayed outside. It was another Western style  
dragon and as incredibly detailed as the other, but the sheer size, about  
seven feet tall and _much_ larger lengthwise, heightened the impression that   
this was _not_ something you wanted to mess with. The look the eyes gave   
as they stared at the entrance was one of challenge at the puny mortal   
beings who dared invade it's lair. The view of wickedly sharp talons and   
the deep red, powerful body increased the effect further.  
"Ah! You came!" cried a voice from behind the drake statue. Darlene  
stepped around the statue and chuckled at their expressions. "I see   
you've met Charcoal here." She patted the statue's side. "Great burglar  
deterrent, don't you think?"  
"Good God, Darlene! _Customer_ deterrent I would think as well!" Linna   
shakily said as Nene peeked around her friend's back to peek warily again at   
the statue.  
"Oh, come on! He's harmless!" Darlene chuckled and waved them in. "He's  
a lot less scary from inside the store. Take a look around."  
Priss, mad at herself for reacting the way she had, boldly walked into  
the store and took a look. The feeling the dragon _knew_ where she was when  
she looked at the immobile head unnerved her a bit, but she wouldn't let that  
bother her. *It's just a statue, Priss. Get a grip.* She distracted herself  
by looking at the store itself and when she got a good look she was   
impressed by the sight.  
Moving quickly into the store and not looking at the dragon in the  
center, Nene started looking at all the items for sale and was surprised at   
what she found on one wall.  
"Linna! She's got _lots_ of those dragons."  
Curious, Linna joined her friend and saw that Nene was correct. An  
entire wall was used to contain a whole variety of those wonderfully detailed  
dragons. They ranged in size from an inch to two feet high and were all  
different. Colors and attitudes varied from one dragon to the next. Half  
of them were Oriental and half Western style dragons. Nene found a silver  
colored Western dragon, wings spread, that looked somehow looked mischievous   
as it cautiously looked behind itself while holding a small crystal in it's   
forepaws.  
*This one's so cute!* As she admired the half-foot statue, she glanced  
at the price and smiled with delight. It wasn't too expensive. Nene called  
out to Darlene. "I'll get this one, Darlene!"  
"Okay. It's yours." When Nene blinked in confusion, Darlene smiled. "I   
can afford to give a few away to friends, I should think. You too, Linna and  
Priss." The overjoyed, enthusiastic hug she got from Nene staggered her a   
bit.   
"Thank you, Darlene!"  
"Really? Hmm..." Linna looked over the dragons with more interest as  
Priss strolled over to look them over as well. The dragon Linna picked was  
an Oriental, aquamarine dragon. It was curled up around its horde of treasure  
and looked quite smug. *Must be envisioning herself in the future,* Darlene  
thought amusedly. Priss didn't seem to want anything until one particular  
dragon caught her eye. It was the same style as the giant dragon in the  
center of the store, but instead of looking menencing it had the look of a  
defiant fighter as it prepared itself for combat against any opponent. Priss  
immediately chose that one.  
*Hm. Should've known that one would appeal to Priss.* The sound  
of a door opening and a gasp caused Darlene to look at the new arrival, which   
happened to be Sylia. *Gah. If he affects _Sylia_ that much maybe I should  
turn Charcoal around. Definitely made him a bit too menencing looking.*   
Sylia was not affected for long, however, and chuckled softly at herself as  
she walked over to where the others were standing with their dragons.  
"That's a bit of a shock when you walk in," Sylia said as she smiled   
a little ruefully.  
"Well, it will definitely wake up the shopping drone," Darlene   
chuckled. She waved at the dragon assortment on the wall. "Want one? On the  
house, though I think I'd better stop that soon or I won't have many left."  
Raising an amused eyebrow, Sylia scanned the statues. "These are very  
good. Excellent in fact. Where did you get them?" She selected a pale blue,  
Oriental dragon that had calm, wise eyes that seemed full of intelligence.  
"Very detailed for the price."  
"Well, I had to guess the price." Darlene smiled, she had prepared  
a story since she knew that _someone_ would ask about the dragons. "The person  
who approached me to sell their work didn't have much of an idea either. So  
I told them I would guess at a price to sell the lot." She chuckled. "If you  
four's reactions are any guess I may have to raise the price soon."  
"Did they give a name?"  
Darlene shrugged. "They said they preferred to remain anonymous, but  
I believe they signed the dragons with a small tornado image." The four new  
owners checked and saw the signature on each dragon.   
"Hmm..." Sylia didn't like the mystery apparently, but accepted   
Darlene's story. For now. She smiled and looked around. "You've done a   
wonderful job of decorating your store. How did you manage all this?"  
"It's a secret." Darlene smiled mischievously at Sylia, trying to  
look cute to get Sylia off the questions. "I'm sure _you_ have one or two  
secrets yourself, Sylia. Life wouldn't be fun if we didn't have secrets." The   
four Knight Sabers had tensed up unconsciously, but relaxed quickly when   
Darlene blinked in surprise at the reaction her comment had caused.   
*Yeesh. Lighten up about that,* Darlene thought.  
"Yes, I guess you're right, Darlene. We _all_ do." Sylia smiled   
mysteriously. "I have to get back soon. Good luck with your store."  
Darlene missed Sylia's hint."Thank _you_ for the help you gave   
_me_, Sylia! Bye!" The remaining friends said their good-byes as Sylia   
walked out with an arch look at the guardian dragon as she left.  
Turning to the others, Darlene smiled. "Well, now that you've seen the  
store and since I haven't any customers yet, I'd like to invite you all for   
dinner if you don't have to go anywhere soon."  
No one said nay and Nene had an expectant look on her face since she  
had had meals made by Darlene before.

After a satisfied Nene, Linna, and Priss left, Darlene chuckled as  
she sat on a white couch and watched the television. The room she sat in only  
had a few pieces of furniture and several of the dragon statues for   
decor. The doorbell would ring if anyone came into the store, but  
since she had just opened and hadn't advertised she wasn't expecting anyone  
today.  
*Finally got this place done.* Darlene sighed with satisfaction. *If  
the dragons sell as well here as they did in the other universe then I should  
be having a lot of business soon. Might want to make something different  
for variety later. Maybe.* Picking up a plate with a slice of cake, she   
began munching on the heavily frosted piece as she watched the TV. Nene   
was a bad influence but Darlene could always use the energy. *That   
underground workplace I created took up a lot of power to finish even   
though it did get out of hand. The store was a lot of work too. Guess I   
can start looking for a spell to get me back soon...once I figure out   
how to get my normal spells working properly again. I still have to find   
out why they aren't...*  
The television started blaring out the, news interrupting Darlene's  
train of thought.  
"ADPolice stopped a rampaging Boomer last night after it ran through   
the busy shopping district causing twenty-one people to become wounded and ten  
dead. Seven ADPolice officers were killed in the process." Several shots of   
the wounded and killed flashed before Darlene's eyes on the screen. A girl who   
looked remarkably like Nabiki was one of the dead. Eyes mercifully closed.  
Darlene stopped eating the piece of cake at that point. The metal fork   
she was using slowly became warped and bent as her hand tightened it's   
grip on the utensil.  
She shook her head. *That's not Nabiki. This is a whole different  
universe.* Unwillingly, Darlene looked at the scene of destruction shown  
on the television again. *But what if she too had someone... Damn Boomer.  
No... Damn Genom.* The true story behind the creation of the Boomer's was   
known to Darlene. She had been planning on leaving before she accidently changed  
something that caused her friends, the Knight Sabers, to _lose_ in a battle.  
However, the story on the news was jolting. This wasn't some fantasy   
universe. This was a real world with _real_ people and the Boomers  
were killing people.  
And Darlene had the power to help.  
Darlene sighed softly as she stared at the screen.  
*I think I may stick around a little longer than I thought.* That  
decided, she focused on the problem of _how_ to do it. *First problem:   
I'll likely need to access computers of all _sorts_ of restricted info to   
really get anywhere. The Knight Sabers have Nene to help them, but I...*   
Darlene thought about the problem. *When I fought that dragon   
mind-to-mind, I enhanced my mind so that it _became_ a _very_ powerful   
computer in essence. What _else_ is a brain? Also, if I can go   
mind-to-mind with a dragon, can I do so with a computer? With   
precognitive power as well I'd be almost unbeatable at guessing   
passwords and sensing detection. As if they could track me.* Darlene   
smiled at the idea. *It might work. After all, AI's are artificial minds   
and that's good. Other _human_ minds don't exactly appeal to me.*   
*But for the rampaging Boomers, I think I'll have to do something  
special. After all, I miss my practice sessions with Ranma.*  
Slowly, Darlene smiled and narrowed her eyes as an idea came.  
*Genom, you may think the Knight Sabers are nothing, but a _Twister_   
is another thing entirely...*   
Darlene grinned at the image that thought produced.  
*Head for the storm shelters!*

Chapter Four  
\------------

Inspector Leon McNickel was enjoying a nice quiet night in his squad  
car when ADPolice headquarters radioed him. His partner Daley was busy  
somewhere else right now so he was alone in the car.  
*Damn. So much for a calm evening.* With a sigh, Leon picked up the  
mike and inquired what was up.  
Apparently, another renagade Boomer, *What else,* Leon thought with  
a snort, had appeared near his position and he was requested to go aid the  
other officers on the scene. He signaled his confirmation and accelerated  
to get there as fast as possible.  
As he dodged traffic, Leon frowned. *Another Boomer. Damn. Double   
damn. We lose too many men to these things and the civilians...* His mind  
stopped that thought as he spotted ADPolice cars barricading the road up   
ahead. Driving up, he opened his window and flashed his ID to an inquiring   
officer.  
Leon was brief. "Where?"  
The officer nodded his head towards the barricade. "It's headed this  
way, sir. Fortunately, the street it's using is pretty deserted and   
people are staying away from it. It should be here any minute."  
Leon nodded, stepped out of the car to stand, and waited for the  
Boomer to appear.  
He didn't have to wait long.  
Running faster than a normal human, the blue Boomer quickly came   
into sight. The ADPolice barricade, which had police officers all training   
their machine guns at the out-of-control 55-C class Boomer, caused the   
humanoid robot to stop once it noticed the obstruction.   
Despite the destruction it had caused, one had to marvel at what   
man's technology had created. Bio-technic in nature, the Boomer moved   
smoothly and quick, belying it's bulky, armour-plated form. Even more   
marvelous was the AI that lived within the red-eyed, skull face. It   
had been a goal long sought after by scientists, made possible by the   
late Dr. Stingray. And then stolen by Genom for the power it promised.  
Rather than attack, the Boomer just stood there in front of the police   
line of fire with an air of amusement about it. The police opened up   
their weapons without any prompting. To wait for an order was not wise when   
dealing with these machines of mayhem.  
Leon was not happy with the results of the storm of bullets hitting  
the Boomer, but not surprised either. *Damn it! The bullets are denting it's   
armour, but it just reforms the slight damage done to it. Bastard machine   
_knew_ this wouldn't hurt it. We need heavier weapons!*  
The police line soon ran out of ammunition and the Boomer was unharmed.  
Unfortunately, it seemed to have become bored and decided to send some  
of it's _own_ fire back. Chest plates opened upwards on the Boomer, revealing  
the multiple array of lens for its heat weapon that was aimed at the   
frantically reloading men.  
"Move out of it's line of fire!" Leon shouted, knowing sickly that the   
men in the police barricade wouldn't have the time to move. The Boomer's   
weapon started to glow as Leon forced himself to watch what would happen.  
However, just before the weapon fired, a black figure interposed   
itself between the shooting Boomer and the police. The intense heat hit   
the unknown form, and either disappeared or was reflected off the   
intruder. The police officers who had seen sudden death approaching   
watched in amazement and relief as this happened with no harm to the   
being standing in front of them.  
"What the...?" Happy that men hadn't died, Leon was amazed at this  
new addition to the battle. For a brief moment he had thought that it was a  
Knight Saber but once he got a good look he didn't know _what_ it was.  
The figure wore armour, but was of a completely different type from   
the Knight Sabers' hardsuits. The black portions that covered the   
non-flexible parts of the body looked...crystalline, but no crystal-type   
material _Leon_ knew could withstand a Boomer weapon like it had. The   
movable portions were covered in a fine, flexible mesh that shimmered   
like quicksilver in the squad cars light. The heat weapon the Boomer had   
fired had likely been absorbed by the dark material while the shimmery   
mesh reflected and dispersed the heat back at the Boomer harmlessly.   
Covering the head was a helmet that brought to mind ancient styles  
of knight armour, but was made of the same absorbing black material as the  
rest with sharp looking, wing-like projections for ears and a narrow visor  
for eyes. The visor was just as black as the rest of the helmet.  
*Who, or _what_, the hell is that? It just saved some butts but can  
it handle the Boomer?* Leon wondered.  
Said android wasn't taking the dramatic failure of it's weapon too  
well however, and it roared at the interloper. The Boomer leaped high   
into the air so it could land and crush the strange-looking figure. What   
it didn't count on was it's target jumping up just as high and meeting   
it in mid-air. With a kick that left a large foot mark in it's chest   
armour, the Boomer went flying in the opposite direction and crashed   
heavily to the ground as the black and silver stranger landed gracefully   
on the ground. As the Boomer angrily started getting up, an odd blue glow   
coalesced into a shining, crystal sword in one of the armoured stranger's   
hands.  
"How did he do _that_?" one of the startled officers blurted out.  
Narrowing his eyes, Leon also wondered at the sword. *That thing better be more  
than an ordinary sword or this guy isn't going to last long.* Irritably,  
Leon scanned the skies. "Where are the copters?" he muttered as his eyes  
returned to watch the fight.  
Running, the stranger approached the almost standing Boomer at a   
speed equal to the surprised and angry machine with sword ready to   
swing at the side. The Boomer lifted a hand to grab the sword when the   
unknown person swung the sword swiftly at it. It got a shock when the sword  
continued through the grasping palm, roughly down it's arm, and finished   
it's passage by exiting behind the Boomer's shoulder. A fascinating, cross   
section was formed for examination of the interior make-up of a Boomer's right   
arm as half of the limb dropped to the ground.  
Leon whistled. *That thing's _sharp_ to go through Boomer armour   
like that. Must be like the green Knight Saber's ribbons.*  
Furious now, the Boomer decided to end the fight by using the laser  
beam weapon in it's mouth. After carefully dodging the dangerous sword, the  
Boomer leaped backwards from the stranger and opened it's mouth to fire the  
weapon causing the mussel of the weapon projected out. As a blue glow   
started in the barrel, the crystalline stranger, after apparently deciding   
something, hefted his sword with the right hand and threw the sword   
powerfully at the about to fire weapon. The blade impaled the laser   
cannon and continued through the Boomer's head until the hilt of the sword   
stopped it from continuing. Energy discharged wildly and uncontrolled   
around the sword as the it dissolved into black dust, no longer needed.   
It had accomplished it's mission of destruction.  
Badly disoriented and in critical condition due to the overloading  
feedback of the cannon, the Boomer wavered unsteadily in the middle of the   
street. The stranger raised it's right fist high. After a second, energy  
began crackling around it in electric discharges. The armoured knight  
ran towards the injured Boomer and hit the machine hard in the lower torso  
with the crackling fist. A flash of light and a huge boom echoed down the street  
as the Boomer was ripped in half explosively at the torso, due to the fist   
punching through it's armour and the force around the fist expending   
itself inside.  
"Jesus," a person said as the police watched the finishing touch on  
the Boomer silently. The being who accomplished this feat hopped up onto a   
second story building roof and quickly disappeared. The police choppers   
finally arrived on the scene, but found no trace of the strange person   
who had handled a Boomer as easily as the Knight Sabers.  
Leaning on his patrol car, Leon smiled at the remains of the   
destroyed Boomer. *Well, well, well. Looks like someone has decided   
to help the Knight Sabers to destroy rampaging Boomer's. Arrived just in   
time too.* Thoughtfully, Leon wondered at the abilities of the new   
appearance. *Odd though. Didn't look like anything _I've_ seen before.   
Even the Knight Sabers armour and weaponry looked more familiar than   
that piece of work. Interesting.* He sighed as he climbed into his car.   
*Time to do the paperwork for this mess.*

"...and then Leon said the armoured guy _threw_ the sword he had made  
into the Boomer's laser cannon!" Nene excitedly said as she repeated what  
Leon had told her to Linna, Priss, and Darlene, as they ate in a restaurant  
Linna had recommended. Continuing, Nene finished her story. "The 'Crystal  
Knight', as everyone down at ADPolice are calling him now, ended the fight  
by punching through the Boomer's armour and blowing it in half with  
some kind of energy discharge. He left by jumping onto a nearby building  
and disappeared." She leaned back in her chair and sighed. "Isn't that   
romantic? Someone else besides the Knight Sabers are fighting amuck Boomers.  
I wonder what he looks like..."   
"If he's blowing away Boomers he's got my vote," Priss chuckled.  
"Yes, but what if he's just a trap for them?" Linna worried out loud.  
"I mean, they _are_ mercenaries. Someone might be using this guy to lure  
them out for revenge."   
As Darlene was with them and they didn't know if she could be trusted  
yet, the other three were being cautious about the discussion, but they wanted  
to talk about it anyway.  
Darlene snorted. "Riiight. Have _you_ ever seen anything come _close_   
to what Nene said he did? Like, suddenly appearing crystal swords that   
disintegrate? Crystal armour that _absorbed_ a heat blast? _I_ certainly can't  
tell where he got that stuff." Darlene had a descrete hand with crossed   
fingers behind her back.  
Linna wasn't very reassured. "But what does he _really_ want?"  
"Oh, don't make everything seem so gloomy, Linna!" Nene pouted. "Maybe  
he just doesn't like Boomers, like Priss."  
"Got _that_ right. Now and forever," Priss stated firmly.   
"Oh, you never know Priss... Nothing lasts forever," Darlene cheerfully  
said, making Priss look sourly at her. The reply was cut off when three   
separate beeping noises got their attention. Linna, Priss, and Nene, quickly   
shut off their Saber Signalers(tm) that were disguised as watches and stood   
up as Darlene blinked.  
"Forgot something that you set your watch alarms for?"  
"Uh...yeah! We promised a friend we'd help her with something. We  
_really_ have to go," Linna uncomfortably said. "We'll pay our bills on the  
way out. Sorry to leave you like this."  
Darlene waved her hand in acknowledgment. "It's okay. If you have to  
go, you have to go. I'll see you later then."  
The other two said their apologies to Darlene and left with Linna,  
leaving Darlene alone with her meal, musing.  
*Sheesh. Lousy hours they have.* She chuckled. *Must get them in all  
sorts of awkward situations.*  
As she ate, Darlene smiled internally at her successful first try   
against a Boomer. The compressed diamond armour and reflective microchain  
weave had worked great even though the heat beam had made it a little warm  
inside since the armour couldn't reflect or absorb _all_ of the heat   
perfectly. It had taken a _week_ to make that complete set of armour using  
plain TK. The _spell_ devised to make it wearable took almost as long to  
build up the power level necessary for it. And that didn't include all the  
time spent thinking on _how_ to do everything. How to make the diamond   
microchain itself took a while to figure out.  
In fact, she had the armour right now on her neck. Magically cloaked   
from all sight, disguised as a diamond, and ready at activate on vocal or   
mental command. The complexity of the spell was...quite a bit. And more so   
than the Dragonsword she had made before coming to this universe. A lot   
of what she had done was new, though she had done a few tests, but it had   
worked, luckily. It allowed her, in female form, to sense approximately   
_where_ a Boomer was causing havoc and showed a brief mental image of   
the Boomer in question. That it hadn't done so meant that the Sabers   
were going on a job and not going after an already rampaging Boomer.  
*Well, it's what they do. Good thing I found out my armour responded  
to my mental commands while _male_. Apparently, my magic resistance is only  
affective when something is _actively_ doing something on _me_ so that my  
armour can receive my _broadcasted_ thoughts. Makes things easier anyway.*  
The Thunderfist had activated perfectly against the Boomer, as well  
as the magically produced full-view display of the outside so that it seemed  
like the helmet wasn't even there. The infra-red and enhanced light hadn't been   
needed though. Cloaking worked perfectly, as did the absorption of light for   
power reasons. The cloak had allowed Twister to stay and watch the ADPolice  
clean up the Boomer.  
The armour, though magical, had needed a power source to recharge   
because of the heavy demands on it so Twister had decided on ambient   
light to collect power for the armour. The heat beam of the Boomer had   
merely charged the armour. Cloak mode didn't allow the armour to charge   
since it _bent_ all forms of light around the armour while giving a   
display to see by magically sensing what light had been bent. No   
illusion that but actual _invisibility_.  
Hidden hot and cold water pockets were kept in the armour. While   
Twister could not actively _control_ water, the armour could store it.  
The idea had come from the fact that teleporting water in a container had   
worked before, so why not in the armour? Heating or cooling itself around   
the water it also opened the sections when donning or removing armour to   
change Twister into the appropriate form. Clothing was _also_   
stored...somewhere, in magically shrunk form. Twister wasn't sure how he  
had managed that bit.  
Twister was quite proud of what he had accomplished with the armour.  
He was quite sure the _dense_, yet magically lightened and strengthened,  
diamond material would hold up to a normal Boomer attack. The compressed air   
padding used inside the armour would help as well.  
*Thing didn't restrict my movements at all. Funny thing is, even though  
I made the armour almost weightless using magic, the inertia of the originally   
_heavy_ armour seems to have remained. I didn't hit that Boomer with my foot   
_that_ hard to leave such a dent. Unexpected bonus I guess.* Darlene had to  
chuckle at what she had done. *Talk about your 'Any magic sufficiently   
advanced is indistinguishable from science.' quote.*  
Darlene chuckled as she finished her meal.

Chapter Five  
\------------

Several weeks went by and Darlene's store grew in popularity as word  
got around. The beautiful interior of the store was almost the main reason  
people came to the place. _That_, however, was reserved for the dragon statues  
that started emptying their places with increasing, and dismaying, speed. The  
reason for the dismay was that they were getting _too_ popular and the demand  
was such that Twister felt he spent _far_ too much time making the things.  
In an effort to stem the tide, Darlene had increased the price once, twice,  
and three times, saying that the artist was having a hard time keeping up  
with the demand and wanted to rest _some_ time. The money soothed Darlene's  
grumbling though and eventually the sale of dragon's slowed to a decent level.  
To get Twister's mind away from dragons, he occupied himself with  
a few other things. Hacking on the computer with a level of ability approaching  
Nene's was a nice distraction. The irony was that Darlene had asked her   
for recommendations on what was the best computer system to get. Extending   
his mind into the computer nets had worked and enhancing his mind at the   
same time resulted in a exponential increase in results, but this was very   
tiring to do for long periods of time so he didn't do it much.  
The hackers in the net were a little puzzled when it did occur though, for   
things happened for 'Firelord', as he called himself on the net, that   
shouldn't have. He had even talked to Nene over the net, but though he   
knew who _she_ was, she had no clue about _his_ identity. It was great,   
after all, he _had_ been studying to be a computer programmer before his   
life changed so dramatically. Everything was so advanced and he wasted no   
time in trying to absorb it all. And with his memory this was going along   
swiftly.   
Boomers were an almost, _almost_, welcome diversion as well. Twister   
had now gone several times to aid ADPolice whenever possible. The police   
_facing_ the Boomers were greatful for the help, while some of the   
higher-ups didn't like the fact that a vigilante was doing a better job   
than the police. Seeing Leon at the scene a few times, Twister noted he   
looked more pleased than angry at Twister's help. Likely due to the fact   
that Twister really _tried_ to save people's lives. He had been hit hard   
as a result of that, but never seriously injured. _Bruised_ perhaps, but   
easily Healed.  
Another diversion he tried was motorcycles.  
Using his TK secretly, he had scanned Priss's bike since Twister knew  
it was a _damn_ fast bike. With his perfect memory, he had contemplated the  
design, making a few improvements with a boosted mind, and built a motorcycle  
with spare parts from a nearby scrapyard. While he didn't have a supply of  
special fuel like Priss, Twister made a few alterations to eliminate the need.  
One was his now-practiced method of molecularly strengthening the metal of the  
engine. This resulted in a much slower heating rate and a frictionless surface  
for moving parts as the process smoothed out surfaces. Therefore, he got   
faster acceleration, a higher speed tolerance, and a stronger bike for using   
normal fuel rather than Doc. Raven's special brand.  
_Should_ have got was more like it. Neglecting what effects those   
improvements had on the _exactly_ duplicated bike was not a Good Thing.  
When run the first time, the engine went faster all right...right up to the   
point where it blew up and scattered pieces of his 'stronger' engine all   
over. Unharmed because of his TK, Twister rebuilt the engine after   
learning more about motorbikes and something called 'tuning an engine'.  
When it was done, painted a deep blue with just as deep purple   
stripes, Twister practiced driving it at his private, underground complex   
in the aircraft hanger sized room. After becoming proficient enough, he   
took to the streets of Mega-Tokyo and had a blast on long, empty roads at   
night. Opening her up once, he had found that he could do 250 km.   
comfortably without the engine starting to sound funny.  
*Yeah. That had been a real pedal to the metal time,* Twister   
thought one night as he drove with a growing ease. *I can see why Priss   
drives around on these things. Lovely to be alone like this with just you   
and the bike.*   
A disturbing thought came to mind.  
The Griffin had finally shown up, as he had known it would, and the   
Outriders were getting trashed badly. Twister wasn't particularly concerned   
about that since he had had personal experience of how they could be from   
that encounter with Steelfist.  
*Won't be long before he's caught though. The...*  
Twister's thought was interrupted as he heard another motorcycle  
beside him and he looked to see who it was.   
It was Priss.  
*Uh oh.* He likely had missed the puzzled expression Priss   
must've had a moment ago before realization hit. The owner of the red   
motorcycle didn't look too happy now from what he could see through the   
transparent windscreen of her helmet. The obvious reason for that was   
that she saw an almost _exact_ duplicate of her _own_ motorcycle, which   
had been specially made by Doc. Raven, being driven in _blue_ colors with   
a _male_ driver. Said driver was _extremely_ happy his own driving gear   
was a matching blue outfit with a black visor that no one could see through.  
*If looks could kill...*  
Before Priss could do anything, Twister got an uneasy feeling and  
he went to the far left of the road as fast as he could. Just was he made it,  
several motorcycles and one black, armoured car sped by at a much higher speed  
he and Priss were going at and almost caused Priss to wipe out. An Outrider  
ahead of them wasn't so fortunate.  
*The Griffin. Greaaat.* He and Priss slowed down to check out the   
fallen biker. She nudged him with a foot and got a groan in response.  
"Bastard," she growled as the Griffin sped further off into the   
distance. Priss revved her engine.  
Twister had to say something. "You're not going to catch him."  
After a contemptuous look at him, Priss drove off, shouting, "Watch me!"  
Sighing, Twister followed her.  
Accelerating to high speeds, he and Priss soon caught up to the rear   
of the Griffin. "What _does_ she plan to do?" he muttered into his   
helmet. Priss's plan obviously included trying to pass the Griffin, but   
she expertly braked behind the car as the Griffin tried to make a road   
pizza out of her. Twister just shook his helmeted head as she stuck her   
tongue out at the car.  
Not surprisingly to Twister, the Griffin accelerated and he and Priss  
followed suit. Fascinated, he watched the speedometer slowly increase its  
reading. It had gone past 250 before a grinding noise got through  
the wind screaming past his helmet. Priss's bike destroying itself. It died a   
second later, slowing down, going uncontrolable, and eventually pitching   
Priss off the bike. Not wanting Priss to be seriously hurt, Twister   
slowed her fall as much as he could on such short notice with his TK.   
Her pants were still shredded by what speed she _had_ and her legs   
got scraped, but not sprained or anything.  
Twister slowed down as fast as he safely could and drove his bike  
around to see how Priss fared. He stopped near her.  
"You okay?"  
"Yeah, shouldda been worse. Got lucky," Priss ground out through the   
pain, watching the black car as the Griffin sped off. "Bastard."  
"I believe you said that already," Twister said in an amused tone.  
She angrily turned her head to face the blue motorcyclist. "Screw you,  
asshole! What the _hell_ are you doing with that bike anyway?!"  
"I _thought_ I was driving calmly down the road. Why? Was I doing   
anything unusual?"  
"My bike is _custom-made_ and _your_ bike is _exactly_ like it!"  
He turned his helmeted head towards the fallen original. "Not   
_exactly_, I believe. _My_ bike could handle the speed." As Priss fumed   
over that, Twister waved farewell. "Since I don't think you prefer my   
company, fair one, I shall depart from thee now. Toodles." Surprised at   
the flattery and outraged at his casual attitude towards her, Priss was   
speechless as Twister drove away. He knew she would be all right now and   
he thought it was best to get away.  
When he had gone, she swore.  
"He could have at _least_ have offered me a lift _dammit_!"

"Getting information for you, Sylia, is always interesting. This   
time is definitely no different."   
Sylia's face betrayed no emotion but she allowed her voice to   
carry a faint bit of curiosity. "Oh? And what did you find, Fargo?"  
For some reason he had chosen an arcade to be their meeting place  
tonight. Video games blared in the background as they talked in a   
relitively quiet spot. Certainly no one else would be able to overhear   
them in this din without them noticing.  
"You told me you weren't certain about somebody and that you wanted  
to, quietly, find out anything at this person's store. Without them knowing  
anything happened. Given I don't see you uncertain over minor matters I   
didn't take this lightly."  
"Yes. And...?"  
"Someone...very qualified broke into the store. Quite easily. Didn't  
seem to be much security for such a popular store." Fargo stopped talking   
and appeared unsure about what to say next.  
"Fargo..."  
He sighed. "This someone happened to be carrying miniature sensors,  
necessary for their...wide range of jobs, to make sure one doesn't fall prey  
to all sorts of nasty traps. Chemicals, lasers, motion det..." Seeing Sylia's  
look of slight impatience he finished quickly. "That someone never wants  
to set foot in that store again."  
Sylia was surprised. "What?"  
"They were scared to death, Sylia. Later, that someone calmed down,  
but not until they were far away and gave me what they had scanned   
before...whatever happened. And they refused to tell me because it was   
thought that I wouldn't believe them anyway." He passed Sylia a disk.   
"Here's the scan but there's nothing there that could've scared a   
professional like that. Not even anything that might be hidden from a scan."  
"Did they tell you any clue what they saw?"  
"They only said: 'it just appeared' and 'it fits the place'. Whatever   
that means."  
Frowning, Sylia contemplated the disk that contained a scan of Darlene's  
store.  
Fargo smiled unexpectantly. "If the someone was surprised that   
badly then you know at least one good thing."  
"And what's that?"  
"The owner doesn't want to kill intruders, despite having   
something to hide to warrent whatever surprised my someone."  
"Reassuring," Sylia dryly said, "but it only makes me more curious."  
Fargo shrugged. "I don't think I can get anyone else to try it. Because  
of the first attempt, that is."  
"No, I think you've done all you can and this certainly was surprising.  
Until next time." Sylia walked away into the arcade.  
Fargo leaned against the wall and sighed with a smile.  
"Always something interesting..."

Later that week, the Griffin was finally caught by ADPolice. Or   
rather, the _car_ was. Something had happened between the on-board   
computer and J.B. Gibson's mind that had formed something malevolent and   
when Gibson had tried to stop the car it knocked him out. So he was   
unconscious in the driver's seat and a now back to normal Naomi, his   
girlfriend, in the passenger section. Priss had used Mackie's Highway   
Star to finally catch up to the car and rescued the trapped lovers with   
the help of Linna and Sylia in their motoroids. The Griffin had   
continued on through the police barricade and into the armoured side of   
the tank placed there to stop it. Not finished, the car had still tried   
to run away, but Leon launched a grenade at it and blew it over the side   
of the highway to die a flaming death. Gibson and Naomi were left safely   
nearby for the police.  
However, one thing happened during the rescue that puzzled the Knight   
Sabers.

"_What_ did you say happened to it?!" a disbelieving Mackie demanded  
of Priss after the rescue when she reluctantly confronted him inside Doc.   
Raven's garage with the Doctor, Linna, and Sylia watching nearby.  
"It _vanished_, alright! I jumped onto the car and when I looked back  
it was gone! I didn't believe it either at the time, but it happened!" Priss  
shouted back angrily at Mackie.   
"How can you _lose_ a motorcycle in _one_ second, Priss?" queried an  
amazed Linna. "I mean, Sylia and I didn't see anything when we flew up the   
freeway."  
"And since you _did_ jump off it there _should_ have been a large  
explosion when the bike fell over at those speeds," a puzzled Sylia replied  
thoughtfully and Mackie groaned at the idea.  
"So _where_ is it?!!" he demanded.  
"Someone order one slightly used racing bike?" a modulated voice  
cheerfully called out from the garage entrance. Everybody in the garage   
whirled to face the source of the voice.  
Casually leaning on the Highway Star, was the Crystal Knight.  
"Please try to be more careful with someone else's toys when   
you're on a mission, Priss. Even being a Knight Saber you _could_ have   
wound up trying to repair it," he continued merrily as he gave the   
machine's seat a pat.  
Stunned that this strange person knew about her being a Knight Saber,  
Priss stammered out, "How...did...you...?"  
"You'd be amazed at what I know and can do," the Crystal Knight  
chuckled.  
Sylia carefully approached the Knight. "_Who_ are you?"  
With an implied arching of eyebrows in his altered voice, he replied,  
"_Really_, Sylia Stingray. That wouldn't be sporting, now would it?" That   
said, the Crystal Knight disappeared before their startled eyes. "Oh, by the  
way, Priss..." a disembodied voice called out that came from around the area  
of the bike. "Till _next_ time, fair one! Toodles!" A chuckle echoed and slowly  
died in the garage.  
Priss started when that was said, then slowly an outraged look came   
over her face. "That was _YOU_ on the bike?!!! Who are you, you _BASTARD_!"   
she yelled to the empty air as her friends stared at her.  
Mackie ran over to his creation, looked over it carefully, and sighed  
in relief. All was as it should be.  
With narrowed eyes, Sylia regarded the space where the Crystal Knight  
had last been. *He must have some form of cloaking device in his armour. That  
is a technology I've never seen before so where did _he_ get it?* She was  
distracted by a curious Linna asking an angry Priss where she had seen the  
Knight before. As Sylia heard Priss's grudgingly told story, she was even more  
puzzled. *He duplicated Priss's bike? And by the sound of it, _improved_ it  
a little bit. How? Who _is_ this strange man?*  
Sylia pondered that thought all the way back to her apartment.

*Hahahahahahahahaha! As Kodachi would say.* Twister laughed to himself.  
*Deities, that was priceless!* He replayed Priss's outraged look in his mind,  
and because he had a perfect memory it was in vivid detail. *Maybe I shouldn't  
have done that _quite_ that way, but I couldn't help myself. Priss is gonna be  
a little peeved at me for a while. I wonder if I should lay off the road for  
a while.* He thoughtfully considered it for a moment and decided.  
Then chuckled.  
*Naaaaaaah!*

Chapter Six  
\-----------

A month passed by, and Twister found more things to do.  
The caverns he had hollowed out are still pretty bare so he set himself  
the task of filling it up with nice things so that it would be livable and  
more. He may have overdone it a little, but it was _his_ private place, even  
though he had, accidentally, created enough rooms for ten people to live  
in. Using magic to enchant a few items, Twister gave the place all the   
necessities of a modern home except for one thing.  
A computer.  
Now the one 'Darlene' used in her home above the shop was nice and   
allowed her plenty of access, but Twister was always wanting something...more.   
He reserved a large room for _that_ future project which he was already   
planning in his mind.  
On nights when he was not having to meet any of his Knight Saber  
friends Twister occasionally enjoyed the highways after closing the   
store. Priss would sometimes spot him and she would madly try to catch him   
with her red bike. Too bad that Twister had improved his biking skills,   
had faster reflexes, and a repitore of made-for-biking psionic tricks he   
had devised to boot. She always found herself losing him or, rarely,   
getting a ticket from THP as she fumed under a chuckling Leon's gaze,   
whom Twister always seemed to know when he was on patrol nearby. Which he   
_did_ due to a spell put on his helmet that caused it to glow slightly on   
the inside when Leon was around. Leon seemed to find the whole thing   
vastly amusing as Priss, who didn't find it funny at _all_, had found   
someone who could out-bike _her_ and wasn't too happy with the fact.

The topic finally came up when the Darlene and her friends gathered  
one night at her place.  
"Why do you keep trying to out-race that guy, Priss?" Nene said   
as Priss fumed on a couch in Darlene's place after getting another ticket   
an hour ago. Linna was typing away on her portable computer on a large,   
padded footrest and Darlene, keeping a straight face with difficultly,   
was comfortably sitting in a softly furnished chair nearby. "You never   
catch him and Leon gets this _big_ grin on his face whenever some THP   
officer mentions the 'Blue Bullet', they're calling him that now,   
over the radio. Even THP can't catch him and they're starting to really   
try too!" she said crossly.  
Priss snorted on the couch. "Since he always loses _me_ I'm not   
surprised that he can lose the THP whenever he wants to!" Linna   
absently nodded from her position  
"I think what Nene is so delicately trying to tell you, Priss, is that  
_maybe_ you should lay off chasing the guy," Darlene commented from her plush  
chair. "He's probably getting loads of laughs whenever he leads you right   
into Leon's happy hands. Leon's certainly a fan of his since the 'Bullet'  
seems to prefer that _Leon_ watches as THP hands you a ticket, while _he_   
speeds away into the sunset." Nene giggled as Priss grimaced. "They're going  
to start betting on whether you ever _catch_ the guy and..."  
"Alright, alright! I get the message!" Priss dejectedly slumped in   
defeat. "That bastard's likely laughing his head off right now."  
"I doubt it," Darlene chuckled. Laughing inside of 'her' head right now  
would have been correct. "Isn't there anything else you can do to get your mind   
off this?"  
Sighing, Priss nodded. "Yeah, I've met this nice girl who seems to  
like bikes a lot. I should see her a bit more to get my mind off _that_  
guy. I'm thinking of giving her a job with the band."  
Linna blinked and looked up from her notebook computer. "What's her   
name?"  
"Sylvie."  
Darlene had to suppress a _severe_ reaction to that name.   
*Uh oh... Times are going to heat up, I think. I _thought_ that   
shooting star looked odd a few days ago.* Twister sighed internally.   
*I haven't heard about any vampire murders though. Maybe I can do   
something before there are. Like making a 'withdraw' from a certain type of   
bank... Gonna be hard to find her but I shouldn't have too much trouble.*  
*Trust _will_ be.*

It was pitch black in the cloud covered sky as a metal figure silently  
moved through the trees. Inside the cockpit there was light which revealed a  
gorgeous, silver-haired woman who was no woman at all but a 33-S Sexadroid  
who was searching for life-saving blood for her and her friend.  
A determined look was on Sylvie's face as she scanned with the D.D.'s   
sensors for the right target.  
*_There_! Two people in a isolated car. Perfect.* She sighed as she  
didn't like doing what she was about to do, especially after meeting that nice   
girl Priss, but she had no choice if she and Anri wanted to survive. *I'd   
better start now.* The D.D. moved forward under her guidance.  
BBOOOONNNNGGGG!  
*What was that?!* Sylvie thought frantically as she checked scanners   
that had registered nothing before. Before she could react, the D.D. _did_.  
A massive fist hurled towards a shadowy figure standing in front of the   
machine of destruction. All it hit was dirt as whatever it was dodged quickly  
and landed a short distance away, waiting patiently despite the threat.  
Before the weapons systems could fire, Sylvie frantically turned them off;  
she hadn't expected the D.D. to respond so quickly and was a little   
frightened at it's increasing ability. She wanted to be fully in control,  
not be a helpless occupant. Seeing as whatever had...knocked??...on the   
D.D.'s leg to get her attention had not attacked, Sylvie decided to   
cautiously find out what, or who, it was.  
Standing outside, and assuming a waiting posture, was a   
strangely armoured figure. What was even more odd was the clipboard, with   
multiple pieces of paper on it, that it held. Before she could react, the   
figure spoke in a modulated voice at her.  
"Two orders of blood at 37 Celsius for a Miss Sylvie!" The figure   
pointed at two plastic containers, that Sylvie hadn't seen before, filled   
with red liquid. "Please sign here please." The stranger held out the   
odd clipboard and held that position.  
Confused, Sylvie opened up the hatch of the battlemover and the person  
sighed with relief.   
"Ah, good. I got the right address." He shuffled the papers as   
the helmet appeared to be looking at them. "Sylvie. D.D. battlemover.   
Mega-Tokyo parkland. Good to be in the right place for once." He held   
out the board again. "Sign here, please? Oh, wait!" An armoured hand slapped  
the helmet. "Special case. I forgot. No signiture necessary. Bye...and   
enjoy!" The person leaped into the woods and disappeared from sight.  
Puzzled and uncertain whether or not the figure was one of her   
enemies, Sylvie guided the D.D.'s systems to grab one of the plastic containers  
and analyzed the liquid. After a few seconds, it was verified as being human  
blood at the proper temperature for the human body.  
Incredulously, Sylvie shook her head and stared at the two large   
containers before quickly draining them of their contents.  
As she returned to the hiding place for the D.D. Sylvie wondered at  
the extremely odd encounter she had just had. Someone who wanted to help her?  
Or...what? 

A week and a half later, Sylvie and Priss were riding their motorcycles  
through various streets. Sylvie was pretty happy at the moment.   
Her and Anri's desperate need for blood was solved after that  
first strange encounter with the armoured figure, whom she found out later  
was called the Crystal Knight. Every night after, two new containers of blood   
could be found in the apartment they shared. Anri was relieved that Sylvie  
wouldn't have to endanger herself, but Sylvie didn't know how long this  
apparent help would last, which bothered her. Especially help from   
someone who fought boomers.  
Until now that is.  
*I've finally found where the disk containing the information Anri and  
I need is located! Once I get it we can finally be free like Priss and her   
friends.* Sylvie smiled in her helmet. *I guess I can almost call them  
_my_ friends as well, though not as close as Priss. Nene reminds me of Anri  
a little. Linna is always busy in her business world and boyfriends. Darlene  
is friendly, even though she seems to be worried about something.* Sylvie   
sighed happily.   
*I am free...*  
Suddenly, a blue motorcycle turned onto their road and didn't appear  
to have noticed them.  
Priss turned her head to Sylvie and with a mischievous smirk motioned  
her to flank the biker on his opposite side. Wondering what Priss was doing,  
Sylvie complied. Quickly, the two female bikers were on either side of the  
'Blue Bullet'.  
Surprised, the black visor went from Priss to Sylvie to Priss again.  
With a resigned shake of the head, he motioned them to pull over to the side   
of the road ahead.  
Priss's attitude towards the Blue Bullet had mellowed over the last   
two weeks. A form of rivalry was created, with either one of them sometimes   
sneaking up on the other when the other didn't expect it. Since the Bullet  
knew that she wasn't that angry now at him, his guard was down and made the  
game an even one. Not that he let THP ever catch him.  
When they had stopped, Priss and Sylvie took off their helmets while  
the Bullet left his on.  
"At last found a biking partner who could stand you, Priss?" He   
chuckled.  
"Shove it up your exhaust pipe, Bullet." Priss replied, not insulted.  
"This is..."  
"Sylvie." The Bullet interrupted Priss, who's mouth now hung slack.  
"Nice to meet you again."  
Sylvie was confused. "Have we met?"  
"Yes and yes."   
This didn't help Sylvie.  
"Ignore him, Sylvie. He likes being cryptic and obscure." Priss snorted  
with disgust. "Let's go! See you on the road, Bullet!" Priss roared off   
expecting Sylvie to follow after.  
Before she did, the Bullet quietly said, "Good luck,   
Sylvie." He sped off quickly from a surprised Sylvie.  
*What did he mean by that?* Sylvie wondered as she started after Priss.

Darlene was contemplating Sylvie in her home above the store.  
*What can I do to save Sylvie? If I do something wrong then _Largo_  
might do something different and the Knight Sabers might not be able to do  
anything about him.*  
Dark thoughts fluttered through her mind before grimly deciding on a  
course of action.  
*I'd better not risk it. Openly at least. Damn. Priss is going to go   
through Hell.*

Priss was in Hell.  
The D.D. battlemover had gone into full-auto mode with _Sylvie_, of  
all people, inside of it. A battered Leon had gasped out the fact about the  
micro-neutron bomb when Sylvie had opened the D.D.'s hatch and begged Priss  
to kill her.  
She couldn't do it.  
The D.D. had finally responded to the threat of Priss and knocked her  
away into the stone wall, shattering her facescreen with the impact. Shaking  
her head to clear it, Priss had gone to get her motoslave to even out the  
odds; the battlemover was just too strong and quick. When she had arrived  
with the machine, she saw Sylia being caught by the D.D.  
Priss had realized that there was _no_ time left. If the micro-neutron  
bomb went off they would _all_ be dead and Sylvie had begged Priss to kill  
her to save them all. She made the heart-breaking choice when the D.D. raised  
it's fist to smash a trapped Sylia and eliminate her threat.  
Using the motoslave's cannon she blew away the D.D.'s right fist, and   
all eyes, including Sylvie's, went up to her. Priss recalled her words then.  
"Sylvie! Here I come!"  
Priss had taken off into the air and the D.D. had launched a salvo of   
rockets and bullets at her. The motoslave exploded in a giant fireball, but   
Priss's armour had protected her. As she fell to the ground, she had aimed   
her main blaster at Sylvie with tears in her eyes and cried out Sylvie's name   
when she fired.  
The shot hit Sylvie in the area below her right breast causing  
her to jerk in shock and the D.D. to shut down, releasing her.   
Priss had caught the limp Sylvie as she fell to the ground and held  
her close as Sylvie softly asked a request of Priss to give a disk to Anri,  
someone she apparently cared for, in her apartment. Priss had agreed  
and she listened to Sylvie's last words before a blue glow flashed in the hole  
the weapon had made and Sylvie went limp. The fighter-singer cried out her   
grief.  
Priss was in Hell.

Leon woke up in the hospital with a familiar red-haired face smiling  
down at him.  
"Back to the land of the living I see," Daley cheerfully said.  
"Of...ow...course." Leon grimaced at the sharp pain in his chest.  
"Better take it easy. You were pretty messed up there."  
"No...shit." Leon sighed. "At least we're not dead... Thanks again to  
the Knight Sabers." He recalled that brief flash of consciousness he had. The  
Knight Sabers gathered around the operator of the battlemover, who was  
apparently dead. The shock had come when he realized it was _Priss_, in the   
blue Knight Saber armour, who had been holding the operator. Then everything  
had gone black again.  
"Not dead, no, but some people in high places certainly wish _they_   
were," Daley wryly commented as he sat down on a hospital chair.  
Frowning now, Leon queried, "What do you mean?"  
A puzzled look came over Daley. "Well, we know the operator of the  
D.D. must have been killed and left by the Knight Sabers, but for some reason  
the body was missing." Leon looked surprised and Daley nodded. "Exactly my  
reaction. Not a trace was detected of who took the body or why." Now Daley  
rubbed the back of his head. "Here's the _real_ kicker. A transport was   
brought in to take the D.D. to a heavily secured area. The battlemover was   
loaded into the truck and the doors locked shut. From what a source of mine  
told me, when the transport reached the base to unload it's cargo, the D.D.   
had _vanished_."   
Leon's eyebrows went straight up at that. "How do you steal something  
_that_ big and heavy without the transport crew being aware of it and likely  
guarded from all sides?"  
"Beats me. My source also mentioned that there was a message burnt   
onto the inside wall of the truck, and I quote: 'Anyone who designed this   
thing with a micro-neutron bomb should be dragged out into the street and   
heckled to death.' No signature. Nothing." Daley sighed. "I'm told they   
scanned the interior of that truck quite throughly too."  
Chuckling at the message, Leon replied, "By the sound of it, the D.D.  
is likely in better hands than I would've hoped for."  
Daley grinned. "Me too." He stood up. "Well, heal fast, partner. I'll  
miss seeing your handsome face around ADPolice headquarters." He waved gaily  
at Leon and sauntered out the door.  
The injured merely looked to the heavens briefly and sighed. *I wonder  
who took the D.D... and Priss is Knight Saber?* Leon closed his eyes to get   
some sleep.   
*That had been one Hell of a confusing day.*

Chapter Seven  
\-------------

Nene was downcast as Sylia continued with the meeting. Impostors   
were trying to frame the Knight Sabers and now Priss had just left saying   
that she was quitting the group. The redhead softly sighed out the   
depression she felt.  
"Nene? Are you all right?" Sylia concernly said. Linna and Mackie both  
turned to look at her.  
"It's just Priss leaving and all, Sylia. It doesn't look good,   
does it?"  
Sylia smiled. "No, it doesn't, but we just have to do what we can.  
Mackie is nearly done the autodroid that was based a little on what you   
managed to scan on the D.D. and the new plane was completed some time   
ago. We should be able to manage this challenge of the impostors on our own."  
"Without Priss it _will_ be more difficult, Sylia," Linna commented.  
"It takes our fighting capacity down by quite a bit. Too bad we don't have  
another fighter like her."  
Perking up at an idea, Nene excitedly said, "How about Darlene? She's  
_very_ good at fighting! Remember that Steelfist creep, Linna?"  
With a thoughtful look, Sylia considered it. After watching Darlene   
quietly for months, she had come to the conclusion that, while the girl did   
seem to have _something_ to hide, the young store owner truly was a good   
person to know as a friend. Still... "Perhaps. If we _do_ have to encounter   
those impostors it _would_ be a good idea to consider her as a replacement   
for Priss...but I _do_ have confidence that Priss will come back eventually. It   
_is_ a good idea though, Nene." She smiled. "Though, I suppose that with her   
shop's business increasing that Darlene would be pretty busy right now."  
"Oops. I forgot about that. She was complaining about that too." Nene  
disappointedly sighed while the others smiled.  
"Anyway, let's continue the meeting..."

Sylia was thinking back to that meeting in her armour as she, Linna,  
and Nene faced off with the newly revealed Super Boomers that had been   
impersonating them. The leader, who had looked like Sylia in her suit, had  
shrugged off one of her palm-blaster attacks with ease.  
*Maybe we should have asked Darlene after all, despite my doubts,   
but she wouldn't have been ready for this in any case.*  
Suddenly, someone stepped out of a shadow-filled doorway that was   
on the roof. Seeing who it was, Sylia's hopes increased. It was the   
Crystal Knight.  
The lead boomer saw him and growled. "So. You've decided to join  
our prey, foolish human? It will make no difference to us."  
The Knight bowed mockingly at the boomer and quickly moved to stand  
beside Sylia, who glanced at him.  
"You waited for us?"  
The armoured figure nodded and made an apologetic shrug.  
"Very well. Let's..."  
"We _both_ waited!" cried out a voice that seemed to be approaching  
rapidly and was now very close. The Knight whirled around just in time to be  
kicked _hard_ in the lower torso and thrown several meters away with his   
attacker still with him. Who then leaped away to land at a spot away from   
both boomers and Knight Sabers.   
Sylia and the others blinked for the attacker was...the Crystal Knight?  
"It's not nice to impersonate someone else," mocked the second   
Knight to the first. The first said nothing as he got up, but when he did  
he spoke, and in a voice unlike that of the second Knight, clear, deep,   
and very, very malevolent.  
"I'm pleased you _did_ come, Knight. It would have been too easy   
to take out the Knight Sabers once I had fooled them. But now..." The   
crystalline-seeming armour expanded and shredded apart from the strain as   
the true nature of the first, and false Knight, was revealed. A Boomer,   
of course. It was more lean looking than the others, but just as advanced,   
who had impersonated the Knight Sabers, painted in all black, and had   
long, wickedly sharp blades extending past it's hands. Various beam   
weapons were also revealed by lens near it's head and in the torso. It   
started walking towards the Knight in a smooth, precise, and predatory   
manner.  
"But you did come. The Master thought you would. He told   
me to kill you if you did. He also told me only _I_ would be needed for   
you. So now you are all _mine_."  
"But we've only just met," called out an unafraid Knight.  
"And parting is such sweet sorrow!" The black Boomer swiftly jumped   
towards his opponent, blades ready to strike. Sylia took advantage of the   
distraction to get the first shot at what appeared to be 'their' Boomers  
and thus started Sylia and the others own fight.  
Leaping backwards from the ebony Boomer's attack, Twister marvelled  
at how _fast_ the thing was as he landed further away. He'd never seen a   
Boomer move this...  
The Boomer landed where he had previously been and gave him   
almost no time to react as it rushed him, firing a particle cannon at the   
same time from it's mouth with the same surprising speed. Obviously,   
someone had figured out the lasers weren't much use against his armour.  
He leapt to avoid the burst and then the Boomer was upon him.  
One arm swung a blade at the Knight and was hurridly blocked by a   
diamond sword made a few seconds previously.  
Twister was unpleasantly surprised when his molecularly-sharp sword   
didn't pass through the other's blade. Indeed, the other's blade cut   
through _his_ sword. He had held the sword two-handed and since the   
Boomer was swinging down, the enemy blade continued it's descent, cutting   
halfway through his left forearm before stopping, despite his formidable   
armour.  
The Boomer was surprised as it pulled the blade out and   
Twister cried out in pain from this and the broken arm. They were both   
falling back to the roof and, as if to reassure itself of something, the   
Boomer used it's other arm to stab down at the Knight's lower torso,   
where flexible mesh and not hard armour protected. Distracted by the pain   
of his arm, Twister wasn't fast enough to prevent the swift machine and   
the blade pierced his armour. Sliding through his flesh, it emerged on   
the other side of his body in time to impale him on the roof.  
The Boomer was most curious, and said "How did your armour   
prevent my blade from going all the way through? It has special fields   
around it that allow it to cut anything. Nothing should be able to resist it   
except another blade like it."  
"The lifetime warranty, I guess," Twister gasped out in pain as he   
lay pinned to the floor. The magic enchantment of his armour must've been the   
only thing that had stopped the sword, but it hadn't been powerful   
enough to prevent the blade from going halfway through it.  
"Hah. Amusing. I guess I shall find out later...after I take your   
worthless head of your pitiful human body." The Boomer raised it's other arm  
and prepared to execute that last statement.  
Twister saw the arm raise through his pain. He hadn't expected   
the Boomer to be this fast and powerful and thus caught off-guard. The  
idea of him dying brought to mind when he had faced it before. The Event.  
And Malkon. And remembered his icy rage for the Demon at being threatened so   
before.  
And anew for this arrogant Boomer now.  
The Knight's visor suddenly flashed cold, glowing blue eyes.  
The uninjured right arm, lightning-quick, moved between him and the Boomer.   
Pure telekinetic force blasted the startled cyberdroid into the air, not   
injuring it but tossing it away and janking the impaling sword away with   
it. No blood flowed from the wound as it did so and, as the Knight slowly   
managed to stand up, the wounds on arm and torso Healed. The cool anger  
fled as the threat of immediate death was gone, but the glowing blue eyes   
remained as he knew he needed his power to defeat this hyped-up Boomer.   
When Twister flexed his left hand cautiously, the Boomer was  
stunned. "I broke your arm! You should not be able to do that!" The Boomer  
shrugged off the surprise and prepared to launch another attack. "It does not  
matter. Soon you will be dead."  
"Can't have _that_, can we?" The Hyperboomer was now going to all out  
to finish what it had thought would be an easy victory. Twister formed two  
swords, new thing to do, in his both hands and prepared himself as the   
Hyperboomer rushed him. *I'm going to have to boost my reflexes and  
strength for this guy.* Twister's blue aura was hidden by his armour, but  
the blue glow could be seen from the cuts his opponent had made. Also, the   
visor still couldn't stop the sight of glowing blue eyes from shining forth.  
Both of the Boomer's blades came screaming towards Twister and  
were blocked, barely, by the diamond swords that glowed blue from the inside.  
Twister had strengthened his swords with his energy to hopefully resist   
whatever power the Hyperboomer's blades had. Fortunately, it worked.  
*Jeez! I'm barely holding him at bay! Even boosted! I guess I can   
only strengthen myself so much.*   
The two forms strained to get the advantage, but couldn't make much   
headway against the other. The black Boomer leaped back and regarded this   
strange being in front of it.  
"You are not as weak as the Master had thought."  
"So glad I meet your approval. Guess Largo got bad info, huh?"  
The boomer stepped back in surprise. "How do you know the Master's  
name?!"  
"You'd be amazed at what I know," the Knight chuckled as he warily   
watched the other.  
"Enough! It is time you died." The bladed Hyperboomer rushed Twister  
again and leaped high to defeat this stubborn opponent. Twister leaped to  
match the boomer and had almost reached it when multiple explosions went off  
in the area where the other Hyberboomers and the Knight Sabers were battling.  
The ebony Boomer was distracted by this, but Twister wasn't. He  
had expected it and took advantage of it to finish off his opponent with   
something he'd never tried before. With boosted strength, he accelerated  
his velocity towards a startled Hyperboomer using his levitation and called   
out his attack.  
"Nova Kick!"  
Twister's right boot instantly began glowing with a bright light as  
approximately 99% of the crystalline armour's stored power was concentrated  
in that one region for the special attack. A powerful kick plowed through  
the Boomer's chest armour as it was being melted by the sheer radiant   
energy of the boot. The energy was then outwardly released from the   
boot, when it was buried inside the cyberdroid, in a vast wave of   
infra-red to visible red light. This caused nearby sections of the   
Boomer to become superheated plasma, flung explosively from the   
force of the heat blast. Twister teleported away just before the   
explosion could hurt him in any way and his disappearance was   
covered by the fireball.  
He reappeared in his underground lair and was barely able to move.  
*Jeez. This thing is _heavy_ when it's drained like this.*  
The load slowly lightened as the illuminated and warm room gave the   
armour energy to lighten itself once more.   
*Better wait till this thing is light enough to move around in.*

Twister had almost begun to feel prepared again when he felt the   
floor tremble slightly.  
*No! Largo's launched his attack on the city already! DAMN!*  
He had already found Quincy's office earlier that week and had   
carefully marked a position that was likely to be safe to teleport.   
Activating the armour's cloaking mode, Twister went quickly to that spot.  
What he saw when he silently arrived in mid-air was Largo finishing   
off the last 55-C class boomer. Anri was looking at Largo from the side of the  
room, frightened. *You should be...* Twister mused as Largo slowly turned to   
face the android copy of Quincy.   
Suddenly, he noticed Ms. Matagan was slowly losing consciousness on   
the ground. Twister scanned her with his TK and found that a piece of shrapnel  
had struck right by a major artery in her leg. As Matagan finally   
fainted, she moved slightly and the shrapnel bit. Twister teleported   
beside her immediately.  
*I may regret this, but...* Twister mentally sighed as he reached out  
and grasped the wounded Genom executive's hand. Blue energy shone as his  
Healing power sought out the soon-to-be-fatal wound and the shrapnel was  
eased out of the wound by TK. Healing was then started. There was some  
strange resistance in the beginning but that faded away as the blue power   
finished it's work.  
Silently, Twister stood up from a no longer dying Matagan and watched   
the events that he had finished in time to watch: Largo discovering the   
deception; Quincy laughing at Largo from the remaining monitors; Largo's   
angry destruction of the wall monitors.  
And then...Priss came.   
*Shoot. I'm gonna _hate_ myself in the morning.*  
The drama played itself out in the way Twister remembered it. Largo  
revealing Priss as the one who had killed Sylvie. Anri revenging Syvlie's  
death upon Priss before discovering the _real_ reasons behind her dear  
friend's death. Largo laughed and revealed his contempt to Priss and  
Anri before raising his hand.  
Twister got ready.  
The bolt of power streaked towards Priss, but was blocked by Anri who  
screamed in pain.  
From his now-grounded position by Matagan, Twister quickly   
focused his mind upon the dying Sexariod. _He_ had been the one who had   
taken Sylvie before the police could arrive, for Sylvie had not been   
truly dead.  
Twister had managed to learn the trick of _reading_ information from  
data disks with TK and had done so before Sylvie had given the important   
information to Priss. The disk had contained _complete_ information about   
33-S construction, repair and, if necessary, how to make them   
self-sufficient. With his boosted mind and perfect memory, Twister had   
quickly found a way to keep Sylvie alive, but unconscious with his TK.   
When he had done so, he had waited for the Knight Sabers to leave before   
teleporting her to his underground lair where she now lay asleep, but   
repaired, until he awoke her.  
Anri would soon be joining her as Twister repaired what needed  
to be done to keep her alive, but unconscious. He then waited for Priss to be  
blown out by Largo's punch and for Largo to leave. Twister teleported   
both Anri and himself to where Sylvie lay and placed Anri beside her  
before returning to Quincy's destroyed office.  
*Whew. Tough part's done.* He looked around in his cloaked state.  
*Boy, they really did a number on this place.* His eyes were drawn to the  
shattered screens on the wall. *That must be where Largo displayed his power  
by...destroying...killing...all...those...people.*  
Twister's mind went blank when he realized what Largo had done and  
that _he_ had practically allowed him to do so. *No...* The reality of the   
situation hit Twister hard then. Thousands had died because he hadn't been  
smart enough to think of a way to beat Largo _before_ this happened. He  
had unconsciously gone back to thinking that this was just anime again   
and he could very well have prevented it.  
A little time passed before a thunderclap brought him out of his   
shocked state and he heard Largo's cry of pain.  
*Largo.* Twister clenched his fists.  
*Largo!* He started walking towards the hole in the wall, cloak turned  
off, and eyes burning coldly azure through his black visor.  
When he reached the hole, he saw the object of his ice-cold hate and  
heard the last words said.  
"...I demand in atonement...death." 

Sylia and the others had just arrived to help Priss and now Sylia was   
supporting her as they all heard Largo's sentence of doom. The remains of   
the three Hyperboomers Priss and the autodroid had destroyed smoked where   
they lay.  
Sylia turned to Linna to shout an order. "Linna!" Just as Linna and  
Nene started to aim the giant weapon they had brought along, the   
battleground echoed with an arctic shout.  
"LARGO!" The voice boomed across the platform and all eyes, including  
Largo's, went to see the Crystal Knight standing in the hole Priss had made  
when Largo had punched her through the wall. Glowing blue eyes none of them  
had ever seen before were focused coldly upon the being that was Largo.  
Largo laughed. "So. Another worm has come to be WHOMPH!"  
Whatever Largo had been about to say was cut short as the Crystal  
Knight flew towards and tackled the would-be god with the speed and power of   
a missile. Together, they quickly fell over the ledge of the tower.  
"H-how did he move t-that fast without jets?" Priss managed to get out.  
She was recovering, but she would likely be hurting for a week from tonight's  
battle.  
"I don't..." Sylia started to say.  
Suddenly, the two figures of Largo and the Crystal Knight shot back up  
into view. They were spinning wildly for some reason, then stopped rising and   
began to arc back down to earth.  
*He's keeping Largo disoriented and busy so he doesn't fire the   
satellite!* Sylia realized. *But what is the Knight using for propulsion?*  
Linna called out, "We've got the lock, Sylia! Should we..?"  
"Yes! Fire!"  
A button was pushed and the giant cannon fired. The blue bolt  
sought out it's target that lived in the sky and destroyed it utterly.  
The airborne duo stopped spinning when the bolt was fired and the Knight  
Sabers could see the Crystal Knight holding Largo in front of him as the two  
plummeted down to the ground. Largo's remaining arm was almost in position to  
destroy the Knight when he was slammed with terrific force on the metal   
floor, creating a man-sized dent. To add further punishment, the Knight's legs  
dropped down with metal-crushing force as they propelled the armoured figure  
away by using Largo as a springboard.  
"AAAAARGH!" Largo had been damaged even more by the Knight's assault,  
but he was still operational and dangerous. He glared at his enemies as he  
slowly regained his feet. "So...you destroyed my satellite, but there are more   
that I can control. All you have bought is time. Time until another of my   
children lie above your heads!"  
During Largo's hate-filled speech, the Crystal Knight had formed   
one of his crystal swords. Strangely, by the time Largo finished, the sword  
was glowing brightly.  
The Knight said nothing save his next attack.  
"ICEBLADE STRIKE!"  
With the same uncanny speed the he had shown before, the Crystal  
Knight threw his sword with such force that it seemed that one moment it was  
in his hands...  
The next embedded in Largo's torso, driving the once-human backwards.  
"Urk! Ah..ha...ha...ha ha hah ahahaha!" Largo threw back his head  
and laughed maliciously. "Is that the best you can do, Crystal Knight?" He   
grinned mockingly at Sylia. "None of you can truly destroy me! I AM A GOD!"  
The Crystal Knight hadn't moved since his last attack on Largo. All  
he said, in a cool tone, was:  
"Wait for it."  
"What?!" Largo suddenly looked down. Contrary to all his previous  
information, the crystalline sword was not dissolving. Instead, the bright  
blue energy that the sword held was beginning to spread from where the sword  
had been driven through his body.   
And where it spread a cold fog formed and drifted to the ground.  
Largo's cybernetic eyes widened as he realized what was happening to  
him. In desperation, he grabbed the hilt of the sword with his remaining hand  
in an attempt to remove the sword.   
And succeeded.   
Unfortunately, the sword's handle began spreading the blue glow into   
Largo's hand, which instantly became unresponsive and continued it's deadly   
grip. Without another arm, Largo was helpless as the blue energy, somehow  
attracted to where the blade had struck before, flowed up his arm and down   
towards his legs.  
"NO! This is IMPOSSIBLE!" Largo said in futile rage, trying to  
throw the blade away and failing as his arm quickly stiffened, fog rolling  
down off it.  
A blue-pink hardsuit walked up beside Sylia and Priss. "What is the   
Knight doing to him?" Nene asked no one in particular.  
Priss had to chuckle. "He's using the phrase 'Chill, dude.' to the  
max."  
"Chill...? Oh!" Wide-eyed, Nene turned back to watch.  
It was almost over. Fog was rolling off Largo everywhere and the  
blue glow was finally reaching the top of his neck. He would have fired his  
mouth-cannon, but he had been so preoccupied in trying to get rid of the sword  
that, by the time Largo had thought of taking his enemies with him, it was   
too late for the cannon was non-operational now.  
Largo tried a desperate ploy, in a passionate tone he called out  
mentally to Sylia, thinking that perhaps he could use her to convince the  
Knight to stop.

She was startled, both by the contact and the content.   
_  
Normally Twister would not use telepathy as he had never used it  
on people or ever wanted to, just the form he used with computers. But as he   
had heard Largo and Sylia's sendings, a faint surprise, he felt a reply was   
in order.   
The Knight's cold mental voice came in, cutting off any chances of  
escape. The blue glow had   
almost reached Largo's head.   
Largo's head was swallowed swiftly by the glow and fog  
hid his entire body.  
Suddenly, the sword Largo held shattered and a wave of blue energy  
spread from the hand to the entire body, leaving a startling form behind.  
Largo was still as a statue now as his body temperature had been   
reduced to absolute zero. His arm was half-raised by his side and a mask of  
hate forever frozen on his face.   
The Knight Sabers gazed at their enemy before a shot from above rang   
out and Largo shattered into little pieces that would now stay inert of life.   
They looked up and saw Leon with a satisfied smile on his face. Warily,  
they turned to the Crystal Knight.  
Twister's eyes were back to normal and he was dead tired from the  
amount of energy it had taken to take Largo's formidable heating systems  
down beyond a temperature that they could not handle. His helmeted head hung  
wearily as he regained some measure of strength to teleport noisily with a  
bang._

_The Knight Sabers looked over the city as Leon left in his chopper.  
"Well..._that_ was satisfying," Linna stated.   
"_Weird_ is what _I_ would say," said Nene as she looked disgustingly  
at the frozen, shattered remains of Largo.  
"Good riddance," Priss said firmly.  
Sylia was silent before raising her palm blaster at Largo's remains.  
With one shot, the pieces of Largo were either vaporized or thrown over the  
side of Genom Tower. She turned to their transportation. "Let's go home."  
Priss silently looked over the city for a second longer. *Sylvie...  
Anri...* Resolutely, she closed her helmet and followed her teammates   
and friends._

_Twister was in his armor as he stood by the still forms of Sylvie and  
Anri. Just thinking over what he had done.  
*I killed him. I killed him and...I guess I don't feel any remorse   
over it. I think that...I would have if it wasn't for one thing that I   
saw.* He nodded to himself. *Yes. Definitely that.*  
He remembered again what he had seen.  
The look of hatred and pure evil in Largo's frozen eyes._

_Two days later, a meeting was interrupted by a call from an astonished  
Doctor Raven in his garage. He had refused to elaborate why, but he insisted   
that they all come down to his garage to look at something the Crystal Knight  
had brought.   
_That_ got everyone's attention and now Sylia, Priss, Nene, Linna,  
and Mackie were almost at Doc. Raven's. Priss was, of course, on her motorcycle  
and saw the Crystal Knight, in his Blue Bullet outfit, leaning on the outside   
of the garage. The helmet turned at Priss and the other's arrival.  
"Ah! You're here, Priss. We and Doctor Raven were wondering how long  
it would take for you to make it." His voice was _very_ cheerful and it sounded  
like he was about to start laughing.  
"'We'?" Priss asked as the Bullet waved his hand to signal someone  
inside the garage.  
Mackie and the Knight Saber's jaws all dropped as an impossibly alive,  
smiling widely, Sylvie and Anri walked out with Doctor Raven smiling behind  
them.  
"Yup. I'd say 'we' would fit." The Bullet chuckled. "You can close  
your mouth now, Priss."  
Priss did so, leaped off her bike, and embraced the two friends she   
had thought lost forever to form a Joyously Crying Trio.  
Lifting her head she dazedly asked, "How....?"  
"You can do wonders with scotch tape nowadays. Didn't you know?" That   
got some glares from Priss and the two Sexaroids. "Okay, okay! Kidding!   
Sheesh!" More calmly he said, "I prevented them from dying in the _first_ place  
and fixed them up when I got back from...Genom tower."  
"Prevented them...?" Realization dawned on Priss. "You _knew_ Sylvie  
was alive?! _Why_ didn't you say so?" She looked furious.  
Soberly, the Bullet answered, "I had my reasons. If I had, _Anri_   
might have died in a way I couldn't have known about." The tone in his   
voice stopped any reply Priss was going to make.  
That got Sylia's attention. "You _knew_ what would happen?" she said  
skeptically.  
"Why do you think I was so angry at Largo?" the Bullet quietly   
answered. He shook his helmet. "Anyways, I'll leave you guys now to enjoy   
a 'precious moment' together. Ta." He leapt onto his blue bike. Before   
going away, he turned to face Linna and said, "Visions of the past shall   
come." He accelerated away before she could respond to that. Everyone   
watched the departing figure go.  
"That guy is _weird_," Linna said as she wondered what the Bullet  
had meant by that.  
"He has a nice body though," mused Nene.  
"Nene!" Linna and Priss shouted crossly.  
Sylvie grabbed Anri and Priss's hands. "I had thought I would never  
see either of you again." Tears shone in her eyes. "Thanks to _him_, Anri and  
I are finally free." She smiled at Anri. "Apparently, he made the adjustments  
to me that _you_ already have so we truly _are_ free now."  
"But where will they go? Won't they need some sort of job where they  
won't be looked down on if people find out who they really are?" Linna asked  
worriedly.  
Priss, Sylvie, and Anri looked a little worried as well.  
"I have an idea!" Nene brightly said. The others started to smile as  
she told them it._

_Darlene was busily working in her store the next day.  
*Gah. This is really starting to drive me nuts.* Business was really  
starting to pick up at her store. *I guess I should think about hiring   
someone to help me, but who can I really trust in this town?* She sighed as  
the door rang to announce more customers. Looking up, Darlene got a pleasant  
surprise.  
"Sylvie!" She acted surprised. "I thought you had left somewhere since  
I haven't seen you around." Priss and the others had never mentioned Sylvie's  
death to Darlene.  
"I just got back." Sylvie replied smiling. "Darlene, this is my friend   
Anri."  
Anri was looking at the inside of the store in rapturous wonder. She   
had never seen anything like it before. It was beautiful.  
"Hello." Darlene looked at Priss and Nene who had come in with the pair.  
"Where you all looking for something to buy in particular?" She said in a   
mock sourly-nasal-department-employee voice.  
Nene spoke up. "You said you were being kept very busy in the store.   
Right?" Darlene nodded and Nene smiled happily. "Why don't you hire Sylvie  
and Anri then? They could use the job." Nene and Anri looked imploringly  
at Darlene while Sylvie looked anxious and Priss calm.  
Darlene blinked in surprise. "Huh?" Then her look turned thoughtful.  
"I _was_ thinking about that a minute ago come to think of it." She   
thought a little longer and then smiled. "Why not? You're both   
hired."  
She got enthusiastic hugs and a happy "Thank you!" from Sylvie and   
Anri, causing Darlene to blush fiercely.   
Priss and Nene smiled.  
"There's also something else..." Priss said, a little hesitently.  
Darlene blinked and looked at the singer. Priss? Hesistent?  
"What?"  
"Well..."_

_Chapter Eight  
\-------------_

_Darlene woke up bearily since she still hadn't quite recovered from  
Largo's deep freezing and fixing the two Sexaroids. With the long practiced  
ease of habit, she got out, took off her clothes, and went to the bathroom to   
take a nice, long, _hot_ shower. Head down, lacking the energy and   
inclination to raise it. She always stayed in female form at home in   
case she had to answer a vid-phone for anything or anything else   
unexpected that she had to do personally.  
*Need to eat a lot. I haven't been lately and that fight with the   
Largo and his minon drained me since I guess I was low to start with.*  
She was inside the bathroom before it registered that the shower was  
_already_ on. Surprised, Darlene lifted her head and saw, through the glass   
paneled doors, an amused and naked _Sylvie_ who was holding the removable   
shower head.  
"Forget that we were here?" she smiled.  
Darlene then remembered that she had agreed, *Stupidly,* to let Sylvie  
and Anri stay at _Darlene's_ place, in the guest room, until they could find   
a closer, available apartment near the store.   
Turning quickly around, Darlene stammered out, "Uh, r-right! Sorry   
about this." Her face was red. *What was I THINKING?!?!? ARGH! My brain must've  
been out of commission or something!*   
Actually, it had been semi-active when Priss and the others had   
come back late last night after unsuccessfully finding a place for Sylvie   
and Arni to stay that was near Darlene's store. Priss and Nene had hinted   
they might not be able to earlier, but weren't quite sure. Nene had said   
it would be _much_ better if they could temperarily stay at Darlene's   
place since her place was big enough and asked if they could.  
Being half-awake is not a good condition to be able to refuse Nene.   
"No problem," Sylvie chuckled. "I'm done now anyway. I'll leave the   
shower on then." Wetly, she stepped out of the shower.  
Carefully, Darlene avoided her hot water covered body, quite a   
feat while not looking at Sylvie. "I'll wait till you go. I'm a little   
more...bashful about things like that."  
"You don't have anything to be bashful about. You have a wonderful  
body," Sylvie commented as she dried herself off and chuckled as Darlene's  
blush was becoming critical. She left, closing the door.  
Calming down, Darlene locked the door and sighed.   
*Just great. Juuuust great.*_

_Refreshed from the shower, and using cold water to change back to  
female form, Darlene cautiously went back to her room and dressed before  
going to the kitchen. Anri and Sylvie were eating leftovers, which Darlene   
recalled she had from last night. They looked up when they heard Darlene   
approach and smiled.  
"We were hungry so we helped ourselves. I hope you don't mind. The  
food you prepared last night was delicious so we couldn't resist," Sylvie  
apologized.  
Darlene waved a hand in acceptance. "Feel free with the food. I eat  
a heck of a lot by myself sometimes so you two won't hurt me at all."  
Anri smiled. "Thank you, Darlene."  
They all started eating again, Darlene much faster about it, while  
Anri and Sylvie were told all the things that Darlene did to keep the store  
running. Since Darlene was realitively new at the business game herself she  
wasn't completely sure about how much to pay the two new employees of hers  
and confessed this fact as they cleaned up after breakfast.  
"We don't need much right now," Sylvie comforted Darlene.  
"Well, I'm _making_ plenty right now because of the dragon statues  
still." She shook her head. "I've raised the prices _six_ times now and people  
are _still_ buying them quickly. The people who buy them just get richer it  
seems as word gets around."  
"That's good," Anri commented as she rinsed off plates with a   
water sprayer before putting them into the dishwasher.  
Darlene took note of this fact. "Is that cold or hot water, Anri?"  
"Hot. Why?" Anri asked curiously as she turned towards Darlene,  
distracted by the question and forgetting that she was still holding the   
sprayer handle firmly.  
"ANRI! Noooooo!" The water hit Darlene in the face and changed her   
back to male form. Fortunately, he still enchanted his clothes out of   
habit so he didn't rip his clothing apart as they changed with him.   
However, both Anri and Sylvie were both staring at the now, much taller,   
_male_ Twister.  
"D-d-darlene?" Sylvie stammered out. Anri was still spraying Twister  
in shock.  
Sighing, Twister TK'ed the water valve shut and he stopped getting  
hit by water. The clothes were waterproof, thankfully. "Twister is what I   
usually call myself. Surprise." He added sourly, "I should've _known_ that   
would happen sooner or later."  
"_That's_ why you were blushing in the bathroom?" Sylvie got out as  
she and Anri slowly recovered from the incredible transformation.  
"Yup."  
"But _how_ did you _do_ that??" Anri blurted out.  
"Something I picked up in the crazy life I've had for the last   
year or so. Might as well show you the rest." A darkness shrouded   
Twister's form and before Sylvie and Anri could react, it dissipated.  
Anri gasped. "You?!"  
The Crystal Knight stood before them in black and silver crystalline  
armour. "The Master of Scotch Tape. That's me." The modulated voice sighed   
before the darkness reappeared and left Twister behind this time.  
Sylvie was struggling with all this. "_You_ saved our lives?" She  
remembered something and stared at the sprayer Anri was still holding. "How  
did the water get shut off?"  
"Telekinesis." Twister shrugged. "I have quite a few powers of the   
mind in this form." He jumped up, flipped, and used his levitation to stand  
on the ceiling. Smirking upside down at the two stunned visitors, Twister  
went on. "Levitation's handy too. I also have a few other powers I don't use as   
much." Twister smiled at the two Sexariods after jumping back down to the   
floor again. "So you see, we _all_ kind of have things to hide."  
Anri and Sylvie had sat on the table chairs again to try to digest this  
new information while Twister went to the cold water tap and splashed some on  
himself to change into a more familiar form for the two confused girls.  
They both seemed to accept it at the same time and looked in wonder at  
the now female Darlene  
"It's just incredible..." said Sylvie, then her eyebrows came   
down with puzzlement. "What did you mean by 'in this form'?"  
"Ahh..." Darlene decided not to mention the magic part of her powers  
right now. "I can't use psionics when I'm female."  
Sylvie nodded. "I see. But still..."  
"Yeah. It is weird, but that's the way I am now. Hm..."  
Darlene decided to tell them her story, edited and altered so that   
the two listening would believe her. After all, a story with demons,   
spirit dragons, and magic would not be very believable to people living in a   
high-tech world, even though it was true.  
"Now... Where shall I begin...?"_

_*Ahh... _Much_ better. Those two learn fast, but then again, so do I.*  
With her two new employees, the store was much easier to run and   
became more enjoyable to work in. Anri seemed to never tire of looking at the  
store's interior between tasks. Sylvie took her work more seriously, but   
seemed to enjoy working in the store with her two friends. The addition   
of two more beautiful women working in the store seemed to attract more   
male customers too.  
Two familiar figures entered the store.  
*Hm? I wonder what Leon and Daley are doing here? Then again, I don't  
think they've ever been in here before.* Darlene decided to personally check   
this out. She walked up to the two partners.   
"Well, finally decided to come to my store, guys?"_

_Leon had been introduced to Darlene at Hot Legs while trying to get,  
unsuccessfully, a date with Priss. Depressed, he had ordered a drink and had   
brightened a little when she had given him a sympathetic pat on the shoulder.   
He had tried to ask _her_ out on a date to which Darlene had arched an eyebrow   
and said that he _must_ have been drinking too much. Leon had scoffed at that   
and indeed, he was having his first drink that night. With a wicked gleam in   
his eye, he had challenged Darlene that she had no way of being able to handle   
more than a couple of drinks.  
Needless to say, Darlene was a little miffed at that, even though she  
had never really _had_ much, if at all, experience drinking and, like all   
newcomers to the art of drinking booze, defiantly accepted Leon's challenge  
without much thought. She declared for a drink-off and that the loser paid  
the tab.  
Leon had arched his eyebrows. "You sure about that?" He had eyed her   
obviously small body weight.  
"Yes!" Darlene had sat down opposite Leon at the table he was sitting  
at. Daley had accompanied Leon that day, and Nene, Priss and Linna, Darlene.   
Priss had left to get ready for the stage and so was absent. Daley,  
Nene, and Linna, were worriedly looking at Darlene, wondering how to stop  
her, but it was too late already because a crowd had gathered to watch this  
small woman get drunk.  
Darlene had ordered, and started on, one extra glass of what Leon   
had to even things up. Tears formed in her eyes at the unaccustomed   
strong booze. Leon looked a little concerned, but Darlene just waved to   
continue as she struggled for breath.  
Unfortunately for Leon, while he was an accomplished drinker, Darlene  
had an advantage of her incredible metabolism and stamina given by the result  
of the Event, that which had given her her powers. _He_ was the one beginning  
to noticibly become drunk before Darlene was. The glasses were blurring  
before his eyes as Darlene finally started showing the effects the drinks   
were having on her. She was fairly drunk by the time Leon fell face first   
onto the table.  
Daley was amused at the scene while Linna and Nene were surprised at  
their friend's resilience. Darlene had obviously never done this much drinking  
before.  
"How did you manage that?" Nene had giggled as she glanced at the   
unconscious Leon.  
Voice slurring, Darlene had replied, "_I_ have been thought...taught  
by the housh of the Anything-Gosh Martial Artsh. _Believe_ mesh, that takesh  
a _lotsh_ of staminash." She had peered at Linna. "Ish that you Nabiki? Making  
betsh on the shide I bet." Darlene had started giggling uncontrollably then.  
Trying to stand up, she had accidently broken the table in half when she  
had dropped a fist down on it. Hard. Daley had quickly lifted Leon backwards  
as he regarded Darlene with a _lot_ of respect. "Oops. Goodsh thing I'm not  
ash Boomer, huh? Bulletsh all oversh the placesh." Darlene peered at the slumped  
Leon in his chair. "We'd better getsh him home..." Before anybody could   
object, Darlene had grabbed the out cold Leon, easily draped him across   
her shoulder, and drunkenly started towards the exit.  
Blinking, Daley had started after the drunken pair with Nene and Linna  
close behind. Fortunately, they had intercepted Darlene before she got away  
from them outside and got Leon away from her. She had _then_ started bouncing   
happily up and down.  
Five feet high into the air that is.  
Linna had finally calmed down her friend after a time and got her   
meekly into her van.   
Daley had whispered to Nene, "_Where_ does that girl _come_ from?? The   
Tribe of the Amazons?"  
"Umm...sorta," was Nene's weak reply before she ran to get into Linna's  
car.   
Daley had shook his head at the unconscious Leon at his feet.   
"Ah... My favorite dream. Oh, well." Daley hefted Leon and dragged him  
home.  
As they drove away, with Darlene snickering for some reason in the back,  
Nene had breathed a sigh of relief.  
"Whew. That was close."  
"I wonder what Darlene was talking about... Well, it could have been   
worse," Linna had said.  
"Hm?"  
"Both Darlene and _you_ could've been drunk. Now _that_ would've   
been worse," Linna had said in a matter-of-fact voice.  
The inside of the van had been filled with the indignant protests   
of Nene for the next ten minutes after that._

_*Sometimes, having a perfect memory in my male form can be _bad_,*  
Darlene thought as she greeted Leon and Daley. She recalled everything she had   
done and had blushed for a week after whenever Nene or Linna had brought up   
the drinking escapade. Needless to say, she hadn't had any alcohol after   
that.  
Leon smiled at Darlene. "We just got off duty and thought we'd  
check out your place. Nene's been talking quite a bit about it."  
Daley whistled as he got a good look at the interior of the store.  
"_Lovely_ place you have here. That dragon gave us a loop though."  
"Oh, Charcoal you mean? He tends to do that." Darlene looked down.  
"You can put the gun _away_ now, Leon."  
Startled, Leon realized that he had instinctively drawn his gun when  
he had seen the lifelike dragon and had unconsciously held on to it. With   
a sheepish smile he put the gun away. "Heh, heh. Sorry."  
" 'Salright. You should've seen Priss when she saw him the first time.  
Backed up in a hurry I can tell you." Darlene chuckled. "See anything you  
want?" She saw the gleam in Leon's eye and added, "I mean _inanimate_ objects,   
Leon."  
Sighing, Leon looked around and saw smaller versions of the dragon  
that had so spooked him before covering a wall of the store. Raising his   
eyebrows, he walked over to the display. "Ahh... So _this_ is where Nene got  
that statue on her desk." He looked at the prices and his eyes widened.   
"I didn't know she was getting so well paid."  
"I gave her one as a gift when I opened, but you _are_ right, they   
are a little expensive." Darlene sighed. "I had to raise the prices several  
times before they were being sold at a comfortable rate." Her eyes narrowed  
as she saw Daley closely examining the shoppers in the store. Darlene stepped  
close to Leon and whispered, "All right. What's going on?" He started to   
protest, but she cut him off. "Daley's being a _bit_ too curious about my   
customers. Spill it."  
"I can tell you've been around Priss," grumbled Leon. He gave in with   
a sigh as she continued to stare at him. "We got an anonymous report that a   
Boomer was going to go rogue around this area. Since it was a busy part of the   
day we didn't want to alarm anyone if it turned out to be a false alarm."  
"Oh, greaaat." Darlene's mystic senses had become fairly good as a   
result of her few months of magical training in Ranma's universe and she had  
discovered that she could sense the difference between Boomers and humans  
a few weeks ago. She scanned her customers with it. Nothing. "It's not here  
Leon."  
"Now how can you be sure...?" Daley came over, shaking his head,   
causing Leon to grin. "Now that's just luck."  
"Heh." Darlene smirked at his skepticism and then frowned as her   
Crystal Knight armour, in it's invisible pendant form, flashed her a brief   
mental image of a newly revealed Boomer that appeared to be in an area near   
her store. "I think it just showed up."  
"You can't be..." Leon and Daley's ADPolice beepers started going off  
which indicated that the Boomer they were seeking had indeed appeared. They  
traded incredulous looks before they rushed out of the store.  
Darlene herself went to the back and told Sylvie to mind the store  
while she was taking a 'Knight' off. Sylvie smothered a smile as she saw  
Darlene walk into a storage room and close the door._

_Since it _was_ a busy time of day, Leon and Daley got to where the  
Boomer had showed itself just in time to see the Crystal Knight quickly finish  
it off by a sword thrust through it's head.   
Daley sighed and turned to Leon. "Did you ever feel superfluous?"  
Leon was not paying attention to his partner but rather looking at  
a young girl who lay on the street near the downed Boomer. Everybody else   
on the street had been able to get away from the Boomer with only minor   
injuries except her. The blood seeping out of her side indicated that her  
wound was serious and a police medic was going over her carefully. When  
Leon came near, the medic shook his head quietly.  
The girl was conscious and looked at Leon. She smiled sadly. "I'm dying,  
I guess, from the doctor's look, aren't I?" Leon's silence confirmed it  
and she weakly started crying. "Damn, damn, damn... I don't want to die."  
She stopped crying when a shadow hid the sun from her eyes and saw the Crystal  
Knight above her. She tried to smile again. "You're that Crystal Knight guy.  
I guess you got here a little too late."  
A modulated voice quietly, but fiercely, said, "It's _never_ too late."   
The Knight knelt by the girl's side and grabbed an arm. "_Never_." Glowing   
blue, the black gauntlet gripped the arm tightly and a barely visible blue   
luminance spread from the point the gauntlet touched. Quickly, it reached the   
wound and, before Leon's wide eyes, started closing it until all that there   
was left was a white scar. Sounding tired, the Knight stood up from a now   
much stronger girl, who was staring in wonder at the dark and shining figure   
in the sunlight, and said a third time, "Never." He walked into the shadows   
and disappeared before Leon thought to stop him.  
Leon called out for the medic again and the grumpy man came over. The  
grumpy look vanished as he saw the healed wound on the girl and quickly  
re-examined the girl. He shook his head in disbelief when he was done.  
"She should be dying from internal hemmoriging, but...it looks as if  
its all been fixed and everything back to normal. I don't know _how_ but  
she's perfectly healthy now." The medic shook his head in wonder. "What did  
this is beyond me."  
"But not the Knight apparently," Leon mused softly to himself. He  
hardly believed it himself and he had seen it happen with his own eyes.  
"Looks like he's more than just a guy in a fancy outfit, hmm?" Daley  
was no less amazed than Leon, but decided not to show it overtly. He had   
witnessed the miracle as well from a position behind Leon and had been silent  
the whole time.  
Leon tried to discount that theory immediately. "Or it could all be  
another trick of that 'fancy outfit'. Who knows?" He smiled down at an  
immensely happy, now recovered girl. "At least it worked, whatever it was."  
The girl smiled back up at Leon._

_The next day, Leon left a message on Darlene's answering machine asking  
if she would like a tour of the ADPolice building for her 'willing cooperation'  
in he and Daley's intrusion of her store. Darlene had raised an eyebrow at what  
might be an unsubtle attempt to likely get Darlene on a date, but decided to   
take him up on the offer since she was curious about the building that Nene  
worked in. Leaving Sylvie and Anri in charge, Darlene took the bus and went  
downtown. She got off a fair distance away because Darlene didn't really hadn't  
been downtown that much and relished a chance to walk a bit to stretch her legs.  
A delicious looking merague pie caught her attention from a store window and   
Darlene couldn't resist buying it for later.  
Eventually, Darlene reached ADPolice headquarters, got a visitor's pass  
from a smiling girl in front, and ascended to Leon's floor in the elevator.  
Spying Leon leaning back in his chair, Darlene quietly chuckled and silently  
walked towards from behind him as stealthily as one trained in martial   
arts could. Other people behind their desks noticed her going towards the   
object of her attention and smothered their laughter as they figured out   
what Darlene was planning.  
Leon was musing over a case he was working on at the moment and also  
wondering if Darlene would accept that invitation today or not. He sighed  
sorrowfully as Leon didn't figure that he would be that lucky. *Then again,  
the Chief Lardass over in his Royal Office isn't exactly in a good mood today.*  
"Hi, Leon!"  
"Wha..wha...whaaaaaahhh!" Leon overbalanced the chair he was leaning  
in and he tipped over rapidly until the floor graciously broke his fall.  
"Whomph!" He stared up at a grinning Darlene after recovering his breath.  
"You came!"   
Smirking, Darlene watched Leon pick himself up from the floor. "What?  
Is someone curious about the ADPolice accepting an invitation of yours so   
rare?"  
"Ah...no." Noticing that his fellow co-workers were in various stages   
of hilarity, Leon shouted at them, "Can I have a _private_ conversation with a  
guest?!" After a few snickers, everybody went back to their paperwork and Leon  
turned to a innocently smiling Darlene with a sigh and a smile.   
"Shall we begin?"  
"Certai..." Darlene was cut off by a bellow from a glass enclosed   
office, which shook from the volume of the shout, with the door open and   
it's angry occupant visible through it.  
"LEON!! Get your sorry butt in here NOW!"  
"Damn," Leon muttered softly before turning with a exasperated   
expression to Darlene. "I'll be right back. Don't go away." Flashing a   
smile at her, he went to face his angry boss. Leon entered the office and   
went over to the side of the room so Darlene had a clear view of both   
Leon and his Chief through the door.  
"What's the problem _this_ time...sir?"  
The Chief was _definitely_ not in a good mood today. "Problem?! I'll  
_tell_ you what the problem is you young _punk_! This is a _police_ station!  
Not some place where you can bring some brainless _bimbo_ in to impress them!  
This a place for _serious_ police busine..." An airborne missile unerringly  
interrupted the Chief with a big SPLUT! when it hit his face dead on.  
Leon had been about to angrily retort about the 'bimbo' remark when  
the missile had startled him into silence. He cautiously peered around the   
entrance to see a tight-lipped, narrow-eyed Darlene advancing angrily  
towards the Chief's office while bringing her arm back down after   
throwing her merague pie at the Chief. The look in her eye made him keep   
_very_ silent and out of the way as she walked up to stand in front of   
the Chief's desk.  
*Hell hath no fury...*  
The Chief finally got his eyes clear of the pie's filling and angrily  
opened them. "Garh! Who the blazes...?" The sight of Darlene standing in   
front of his desk in an obvious and barely restrained rage startled him a   
bit, but not much. "Do you know the penalties for..."  
"...calling someone a...'bimbo' was it?" Darlene interrupted the   
Chief with deceptive calm. "I'd say a pie in the face and losing the use of one  
desk will do." Before the Chief could comment, Darlene raised her right hand  
and with a, "HIIII-YAH!!!", brought it down on the Chief's big, sturdy desk.  
Breaking it in half. Dusting her hand off, Darlene addressed the Chief once  
more. "Anything else?" Her narrowed eyes disagreed with her question.  
The Chief stared down at the two halves of his once whole desk in   
shock. He slowly looked up at the small woman who had accomplished the deed   
and was defiantly staring at him with anger in her eyes.  
Leon was quicker to unfreeze and grabbed Darlene hurriedly before   
dragging her reluctant form out the door. "I think we'd better start that tour  
now and let the Chief...ah...recover." Glancing at the broken desk and the  
still stunned Chief with pie still on his face, Leon smirked inwardly.   
*I wish I had a camera...*_

_"You broke his desk in _half_??" Nene said, undecided whether to  
stare in horror or giggle. Giggling won.  
Leon's tour had brought them quickly to where Nene worked and Darlene  
had filled her, and a curious Naoko, in to what had happened earlier.  
Darlene was unrepentant. "Yup, and proud of it after _that_ remark."  
She snorted slightly.  
"He wasn't exactly in the best of moods today," Leon smirked. "But   
somehow I think he'll have cooled off a bit now. Probably from the pie.   
Where did you learn how to do that with the desk anyway, Darlene?"  
"Um... Oh, a long time ago, Leon. I don't use it much," Darlene   
nervously said. Nene blinked behind her desk at this comment.  
Leon grinned down at a now fidgeting Darlene. "I seem to recall Daley  
mention you doing something similar after that contest when I   
was...er...out. I didn't believe him then, but now..." He let the   
unfinished statement trail off.  
"Well..."  
Fortunately, the aforementioned Daley poked his head into the office   
and spied his partner. "Hey, Leon! There's some trouble in district 23 and   
we need you."  
"Argh!" Leon wiped a grimace off his face and smiled at the three  
girls. "Oh, well, duty calls! Could you help Darlene get out, Nene? Thanks!"  
Before Nene could respond, Leon ran out of the office.  
Darlene gave a sigh of relief. *Whew.*  
However, Nene had gotten out of her chair and was now standing beside  
Darlene.  
Nene whispered to Darlene, "Have you got your memory back? I just   
realized I never really asked you about that before."  
"Ah...Yes, but I don't think now is the time to discuss it. Please?  
Later?"  
"Sure." Nene nodded eagerly and Darlene had to smile at that.  
Not wanting to be left out, Naoko came closer to join the two's  
quiet conversation.  
"Say, Nene. Did you want you invite your friend with us to the concert  
next month? I should be able to get three tickets." Naoko smiled at Darlene.  
"One more person should make it even more fun."  
"Did you want to come, Darlene?"  
"Sure. I'd heard Vision was coming and was thinking about it myself."  
"Great! I'll make the arrangements!" Naoko beamed.  
"And as an added bonus...why don't you come by my store and pick out a   
dragon as a gift? That is...if you want to."  
_That_ widened Naoko's eyes. "_You're_ the one who owns that store   
everybody's talking about? Oh, _great_!"  
This was news to Darlene. "I didn't think it was that well known."  
"Oh, sure! Those dragons, like the one you gave Nene, are beautiful!"  
Darlene sighed mentally.  
*So much for low profile.*_

_Chapter Nine  
\------------_

_In a dark place, hidden deep under Mega-Tokyo, three forms suddenly  
began to stir as power returned to the darkened room in which they lay.  
The room was large and contained cutting edge and revolutionary equipment  
in front of and within it's walls. The owner of the room had been very   
careful about it's secrecy and the location of this place could never   
be divulged from those who had constructed it.  
They had not left alive.  
All eyes opened simultaneously on those now awakened and they  
quickly sat up from their horizontal positions on the metal platforms upon which  
they lay. A screen lit up in their field of vision and three pairs of   
eyes regarded the message that flashed there._

_\------------------------------------------------------------------  
TIME DELAY ACTIVATION HAS BEEN COMPLETED._

_CAUSE FOR ACTIVATION: SIGNAL TERMINATED DUE TO DESTRUCTION OF  
MASTER UNIT._

_ACTION RECOMMENDED: CREATE NEW UNIT IMMEDIATELY WITH COMPLETE  
MEMORY ENGRAM.  
MEMORY RECORDING OF MASTER UNIT UP TO   
TERMINATION READY IN MEMORY STORAGE AND   
PREPARED FOR NEW UNIT TO REVIEW._

_ORDERS: AWAKEN THE TRUE LEADER OF BOOMERKIND.  
AWAKEN...LARGO.  
\------------------------------------------------------------------_

_Seeing this, the three clones of Largo got off their metal beds  
and scanned the room. Despite appearances they were similar to Largo only in   
that they possessed the knowledge and experience he had. Their structure   
made them stronger than an ordinary 55-C class Boomer but far from   
Largo's level. As well, the clones had not been fully engrammed with   
Brian J. Mason's thought patterns. Each had only been capable of receiving   
portions of Mason's full personality, so as to not become a threat. Largo   
had preferred them this way, only Boomers with parts of his mind were   
worthy enough to protect his future existence. They had been   
programmed to obey his wishes without question and, in the _very_   
unlikely case of his demise, his successor. Unfortunately for Largo, he   
had changed his thinking and began to think of himself as invincible and   
decided the clones unnecessary. He never finished the vital part of  
his future resurrection.   
And so left them, forgotten. This his clones did not know.   
"So Largo has been defeated," muttered Clone One.   
"Unbelievable," Clone Two remarked. Each clone's personality was   
different from the other as a result of the different portions of Mason's   
mind they received.  
"It must be so for us to have awakened now. Now we must prepare to  
awaken our creator again," Clone Three commanded. "His new body will be even  
_more_ perfec..." He stopped as he saw that the fourth metal bed was empty.  
The other two followed their companion's gaze.  
This was the vital part Largo never completed.  
"There's nothing here!" cried out a dismayed Clone Two. "But we _must_  
awaken him immediately!"   
The programming within each of them demanded this and failure to   
comply with their directives would cause all three to shut down. Largo had  
planned for his clones to use a duplicate body of himself to place the   
original engram of Mason into and then feed in his memories up to his   
destruction in order to be reborn. Since there was no body, his clones now   
faced a dilemma.  
"Can one of us be the new body?" queried Clone One.  
After quickly checking with the room's computer, Clone Three shook his  
head. "Not possible. Our construction was not intended for full memory engram  
impression."  
Feeling the conflict starting within him, Clone Two looked around  
desperately. "There has to be _something_ we can do! Isn't there anything here  
that _can_ store a full memory engram?"  
"I don't see how..." Clone One spotted something on one wall that   
caught his attention. Walking up to it, he read the label and smiled.  
The other two watched as he pressed a sequence of buttons on a panel and a  
rectangle came out of the wall, mist swirling about it.  
Clone Three walked up to the clearing, transparent covering and looked  
at what lay inside the box. After raising an eyebrow, he slowly nodded to  
the others' relief.  
"Yes. I believe this have will do..."_

_A few days later...._

_Nene was wondering at her dining companion's reactions as she  
ate what was in front of her with half a mind.  
Darlene had invited Nene to have dinner with her, Sylvie, and  
Anri. While they all ate, the others were being unusually quiet and   
somewhat distracted. Darlene especially for some reason.  
*This isn't like them at all...* Nene mused to herself. *It must have  
something to do with Darlene's past since that's what she said she was going  
to tell me tonight.* Nene ate some more of the delicious meal as she thought  
on. *She must have told Sylvie and Anri since _they_ seem awfully quiet too.  
What could it be to worry _them_? I hope it's not bad.*  
With a sigh, Darlene stood up from her almost finished meal and walked  
over to where Nene sat.  
"I think I'd better do this in a place where you will believe me."  
Glancing at her two employees, she smiled. "I'm sure you two can keep   
yourselves busy. Thank goodness you two found a new place to live in, you   
_are_ a little loud." While Sylvie and Anri blushed, Nene too when she   
realized what Darlene meant, Darlene motioned a confused Nene to stand   
up. When she did, Nene was startled by a mysterious darkness that   
surrounded Darlene before disappearing to reveal something _truly_ shocking.  
Nene's jaw dropped at what she saw.  
Standing close beside her, the Crystal Knight waved a hand and both  
he and Nene vanished from the apartment. They reappeared somewhere Nene   
had never been before: Twister's underground lair.  
The darkness returned and left again, leaving Darlene behind this time,  
who regarded Nene carefully. She seemed rather lacking in words for the moment  
and just stood immobile, slowly looking around herself.  
*Hm. Maybe just a tad too much to take in at once,* Darlene mused.   
*Oh, well. Better get what I need to show Nene my other side.*  
As she left to get some hot water from the kitchen she had long   
ago made for convenience, Darlene reflected upon the decor of her   
underground home and decided Nene's shock was understandable. She had   
practiced both minor enchantments and TK when she had spare time   
available to decorate the place. The results were a little mind-boggling   
as walls had been etched with TK's incredible detail and colored a bit with  
various metals, crystals, and magic. Scenes of knights fighting dragons   
were placed beside ones of the Knight Sabers fighting Boomers; a somewhat  
amusing sight for Darlene whenever she looked at this. Furniture had   
mixtures of mind and magic elements in their creation as well. For   
example, a padded chair would conform itself to the seated form and   
would massage the body to relax that person.  
Walking back and seeing Nene still staring around at everything,  
Darlene gently guided her into one of the massaging chairs which   
immediately started up, relaxing the stiff Nene. She slowly came   
out of her shock as Darlene watched her silently.  
Nene looked up at her friend's face. "Wha...wha...what did you _do_   
Darlene?!" she stammered out.  
"Teleportation."  
Not exactly happy with that reply, Nene burst out, "Not _that_!"  
How can you be the Crystal Knight?! As the Blue Bullet he's definitely a   
_guy_. There's no way you can be..."  
Darlene poured some of the hot water on herself and changed into male  
form. "Presto chango. Instant guy." Twister had to grin a little, it was   
a rare occasion that he told someone about his sex-changing voluntarily.  
Nene was understandably stunned. "How...?"  
"Well...remember how you met me?" Nene nodded. "Um...I'm not from this  
universe and that's where I appeared...without my memory because of something  
that happened in the universe I was chucked out of."   
His companion was wide-eyed at this. "Another _universe_?? Oh, wow! Is  
everyone there both male and female?" Twister's amused snort signaled the   
negative.   
"Ah, no, Nene. It was something...strange that someone used on me."   
Twister supposed he had to tell _somebody_ about the magic part, a   
little bit at least...? No, not yet. "I'm...um...not sure how it works."   
True enough in a way. He _didn't_ know exactly how he changed forms,   
just that it was magic.   
Impossibly, Nene's eyes opened wider. *How does she do that?*  
"Oh! That's terrible! Maybe Sylia can help you, but...how did you   
know about us being the Knight Sabers?"  
"My armour can be invisible, Nene. It's not hard to find out things  
when you can't be seen."   
"Oh. Right." Nene accepted that and smiled, then a thought came to   
her. "But..." Nene's smiling face became a frowning one. "...were you a   
guy originally?"  
"Yes."  
"And...when did you get your memory back?"  
"It was the hot shower I had after you gave me that first lesson on   
the computer. Now _that_ had been a shock."  
"So...you knew...you were...a guy...all...the..time..."  
Nene's expression was making Twister very nervous. "Uh, Nene...?"  
"...all the...time...in my _home_?? When I...changed clothes?!?"  
*Uh oh.*   
"YOU PERVERT!!!"   
Nene, with righteous anger, started towards a hesitant Twister, who   
was making no-no gestures with his head and hands as he backed away from her.  
"Now, Nene, calm down a second and..."  
A piece of stone Twister had worked on to make it smooth and pretty  
for use as a decoration was quickly grabbed and thrown by Nene. It was easily  
dodged, but there were quite a few things in the room Nene could throw at   
him.  
Solution? Fly.  
When Twister leaped up and started hovering, Nene paused in the act  
of grabbing another piece of stone art to stare at him, indignation   
momentarily forgotten.  
"How...?"  
Not wanting to dodge rocks all day for something he hadn't done,   
Twister quickly started talking.  
"Now hold on, Nene. Did you _ever_ see me looking at you when you   
changed?"  
Still staring, Nene reluctantly said, "Well...no, but..."  
"And didn't you comment once that I was being too _shy_ when you   
noticed I was avoiding looking at you when you _did_ change?" Seeing Nene   
mull that over Twister decided it was safe and came back down.  
"Actually..." Nene looked embarrassed now, "...yes."  
"That was one of the reasons why I wanted my own place. My nerves were  
being frazzled."  
"Oh," Nene meekly said.  
Twister sighed. "Look, I wasn't sure how you guys would react when  
I remembered who I was so I stayed being Darlene. I _am_ sorry about that."  
"And now?" Nene was regarding Twister and wasn't exactly sure how  
she felt.  
"You guys are my _friends_," Twister stated firmly. "When you asked me  
about my past I decided I should finally tell you. I owe you that, after all  
you've done for me. I shouldn't have hid it so long from you guys and   
I..whoomph!"  
Nene had gone into full hugging mode and had targeted Twister, catching  
him off-guard. It felt strange for both of them now that he was quite a bit   
taller than her.  
"You're my friend too, Darlene." She blinked and released the hug so  
she could step back and smile up at Twister. "I guess I should call you Twister  
now."  
"When I'm a guy, yes. It'll make things easier."  
The enthusiasm Nene had shown before started up again.   
"How did you fly anyway?"  
"I have psionic powers when I'm male so I levitated. I used them   
to make my suit and a little when I fight Boomers." He chuckled at Nene's   
expression when he said 'sometimes' and explained. "I'm still stronger   
than I look." Then he grinned. "I'm just wondering if I'll have a repeat   
of what you did if I tell Linna I used precognition to help me on the   
stock market."  
Nene's eyes widened once more, then she giggled. "She'd be so _mad_."  
"Hmm... Maybe some things are best left untold. Anyway," Twister  
extended a hand to Nene, who had sat down on a chair during their conversation,  
"shall I show you my abode? You'll be the first, other than me, who've seen  
this place."  
Quickly, Nene stood up and grabbed Twister's hand. "Where are we  
anyway? How long did it take you to _make_ this place? What have you...?"  
"Whoa!" Twister chuckled as they started to explore his secret   
residence.   
"Let's start at the beginning..."   
With a lot of editing of course._

_"...and then the crystal's energy sent me into _this_ universe."  
Omitting the part that it was an evil spirit who _directed_ the energy and that  
he had been using magic to _contain_ said spirit.  
"And your memory was gone because of that?" Nene queried as they almost  
finished the grand tour of Twister's secret place. She was amazed inwardly at  
the _size_ of the place. It was almost the size of a small military base with   
it's large rooms, but she did wonder why Twister seemed a little   
embarrassed when she remarked on how big it was. The aircraft hanger sized   
area really amazed her with it's space since it was mostly empty.   
Twister's motorcycle he rode as the Blue Bullet was there as well as   
something under a _huge_ cover. Her friend Darlene, *_Twister_, I guess   
I should say, but I'll still think Darlene,* had smiled mysteriously and   
said it was an experiment he was working on and off on.  
"Yes. It wasn't until my hot shower that I regained my memory by  
changing back. My perfect memory in this form came into effect then." He   
sighed. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you, but I wasn't sure what to do then. Can  
you understand my reasons?"  
"Well...I guess so. It _is_ a strange story." Nene smiled up at Twister  
since he was a lot taller as a male. "But I _do_ believe you...Twister. This  
place is great!" She frowned slightly then. "Have you tried to go back? _Can_  
you get back?"  
"I've...been thinking on how to do it, but I'm not sure how yet."  
The fact that his magic was still behaving oddly was the prime reason  
for that. And until _that_ problem was solved...his gaze fell upon  
Nene. "But I also wanted to help my new friends _here_ before I did leave. I   
don't think Genom will ignore the Knight Sabers forever, Nene, and I   
wanted to do _something_ that would make you guys better protected from   
them." They entered a new room and Twister waved at the contents inside   
with a wide smile.   
"_This_ should help me a lot."  
Nene gasped.  
In the middle of the large room was a very large, multi-colored,   
crystalline obelisk sitting upon a pitch black pedestal. Some   
wires came out of the base to connect to one of the most sophisticated   
computer interfacing systems Nene had ever seen and she knew all the most   
up-to-date systems available. Other wires went over to several, six-foot   
tubes standing by a wall.  
"What _is_ that?"  
Twister smiled at the setup. "I decided to actually _build_   
something using information and software I've obtained from the net as   
Firelord..." He nodded as Nene whirled to stare incredulously at him. "That   
was me, alright. Since diamond is easily made for me, I hacked into quite a   
few places to get the knowledge necessary to build an _optical_-based computer   
and spending quite a few months designing and building it on my spare time.  
>From _programs_ I've looked at, I created my own operating system for this   
unique creation. With the results I've gotten...I think I can safely say that   
you are looking at the most awesome computer currently on the planet." He   
paused. "By _far_. It's amazing what you can make if you use protected   
information from companies connected to the Net all over the globe, and   
be able to merge it all together. It's dedicated for breaking security   
systems mostly and has already gotten one-third into the Genom   
database. Slowly. They don't even know it either." Chuckling at Nene's awed   
expression, Twister looked at a box beside the powerful system core. *I   
had to create an device of science and enchantment just to get a   
connection _out_ from this place. I did _not_ care to dig through a mile   
of rock just for a wire connection. _Very_ illegal as well, or it would   
be if anyone knew of such a thing, as it can access pretty much anything   
that has a connection to the Net.*  
Twister said offhandedly, "Care to try it? The memory is pretty   
free since I only have a few programs going right now."  
"Sure!" Nene rushed to the system, sat down, and immediately started  
typing on the keyboard as she felt her way through the system. "How did you  
make it anyway? It's _big_."  
Looking up at his creation, Twister chuckled. "I used my TK of course.  
Took much longer than my armour though..." he mused.  
Nene frowned a little as she explored the new system. "It's faster  
than anything I've used before, but the interface isn't very good."  
"Sorry. I didn't put much work into that since I finished it not too  
long ago and I don't _need_ that for a major task, though it's tiring if I do  
it that way for long. Maybe...no." Twister looked at the tubes on the wall  
as he said that last sentence.  
She had noticed his glance toward the tubes she had seen before. "What  
_are_ those anyway?"  
"Something...different I have to test yet. Likely never."  
Suddenly, a message appeared before Nene's eyes on the screen saying   
that Dr. Stingray had entered the net. The ADPolice officer was wide-eyed   
at this and spun to face Twister.  
"You bugged Sylia??!"  
"Well, she _has_ been overly curious about 'Firelord' and I added   
something to _help_ her avoid detection actually. That's why I called the   
system 'Wingman' 'cause it'll cover my rear end when I'm working. Much   
easier than just myself."  
Nene grinned up at Twister before turning back and begin intensely   
typing away again on the computer, trying to talk to Sylia now that she   
had access to a powerful computer that wasn't in ADPolice. After   
affirming that it couldn't be traced, Twister curiously watched over her   
shoulder as Nene initiated the talk session with Sylia._

_-Hi Sylia! It's Nene!-  
-Nene?!?! Where are you? How did you know it was me?-  
-Firelord's showing me his computer and it told me you entered the  
Net.-  
-You found Firelord?!-  
-He found me! *giggle* He's nice.- Twister chuckled behind Nene.   
-Who is he?-  
-Well, he's handsome.- Nene giggled as she practically felt the blush  
Twister had.  
-Nene...-  
-I don't think he wants me to say right now. His new computer's helping  
you on the Net secretly right now.-  
-I _was_ wondering why some security hadn't gone off...-  
-He says it's the most powerful computer on the planet.-  
-Nene, _every_ good user believes their system is the 'most powerful   
computer on the planet'. Though...it must be an excellent system to   
cover me where I've been.-  
-*sigh* It is.- Nene giggled when Twister muttered something about  
nonbelievers and politely took her position before the keyboard.  
-Hark! Dost mine eyes see disbelief from thy typed words?-  
-Firelord, I presume?-  
-*bow* At thy command, oh wise one.-  
-May I ask your name?-  
-Ain't much better than Firelord and it wouldn't help thee anyhow.-  
-Very well. Since you know Nene...may I make you a small offer for  
helping me gather information?-  
-Ah, but that is a task I have already set myself. Like Genom...-  
-Don't be foolish. No one has gotten much more than an eighth into   
their main system.-  
-WHOOPS! *grin* Good thing you didn't tell me that before I got past  
the one-third mark.-   
There was a long pause after that message. "Hm. Might have blown her   
mind there." Nene was trying not to laugh as she remembered _her_ reaction to  
Twister's statement before Sylia managed a reply.  
-You are already _past_ that point?!-  
-Nene _told_ you how powerful my computer is. Works great even though  
I need to fill up all that empty storage. Well, it's been fun but I  
think I have to go. Ta! Btw, Nene says bye as well.-_

_Chuckling, Twister closed the connection. "I really have to chuck that  
habit of leaving people with their mouths hanging open."  
"Sylia's not going to be too happy with that," Nene said worriedly.  
"Just say I'll let you play with my system." He looked at her   
inquiringly. "If you _want_ to that is..."  
"Do I want to?! Of course!" She hugged Twister. "Thank you!"  
"No problem. I'll have to teleport you here and back but that's quick  
enough. And..." Twister grinned. "as you've seen, there's lots of snacks in  
the kitchen. Better watch it though. _I_ can afford not to since I burn it off  
darn quickly when I use my powers. Maybe I should arrange it so you can access   
from your home..." Nene's brightened mood turned petulant at that part.   
"Remember, I know about you and sweets."  
She sighed. "I know, I know. I just wonder what I'm going to say to  
Sylia when I see her again."  
"Don't worry, I'll tell them all when I think they'll accept it   
and from your reactions that shouldn't be too long. Just tell her what my   
male form looks like, that my computer system is really impressive   
looking and that you have no idea where I took you." He had to laugh.   
"Nothing like the truth with a few details deleted."  
"A few million details Dar...Twister."  
"Heh." Standing up, Twister motioned Nene out of the room. "I'll   
change back to being 'Darlene', become the Crystal Knight, and take you   
back. This concludes Twister Tour's guided explanation to Blow Your Mind   
Away."  
He and Nene laughed as they left the computer room._

_Chapter Ten  
\-----------_

_Matagan stood quietly by Quincy's desk as they silently watched  
the monitors on the wall. The hidden cameras at the future, now devastated,   
Boomer testing grounds had captured everything that had happened the day   
before and they were going over the result.  
Expressionless, Quincy watched the recording as Matagan marveled at   
her superior's calm. They had lost the prototype for the new Boomer   
created by the joint efforts of Genom and the American company in the   
battle that had taken place in the grounds. The fact that the deadly blue   
spider-walker had been destroyed in the process didn't make it any less   
costly.  
*Damn,* Matagan thought with some heat. *We _know_ who was responsible  
for that thing, but we cannot move against her due to the fact that the Chang  
organization would not take that very well. They've lost too much as it is  
now, which brought this thing on in the first place.* Her eyes narrowed as  
the Knight Sabers came into the camera's range. *The Knight Sabers. I did find   
out that they were hired by that American to protect him. Still, their  
participation in the new Boomer's destruction instead of merely taking their  
client to safety does not put them in a very favorable light.*   
The Genom executives watched the fight continue until the Boomer locked  
itself in a death grip with the spider-walker. The crew's compartment blew  
open and one chair ejected the rear pilot to safety. The pilot in front,   
however, was caught by one of the Boomer's arms and could not escape. The   
green Knight Saber rushed to help the obviously female pilot.  
"Now..." Quincy quietly spoke as he narrowed his eyes.  
Swiftly, another form that Matagan recognized as the Crystal Knight   
rushed out from between the buildings, leaped forward, and cut the   
Boomer's arm off with a crystal sword. This resulted in the hand trapping   
the pilot to open. The green Knight Saber grabbed the pilot before flying   
away. The Crystal Knight vanished.  
"What the...?" Matagan burst out involuntarily.  
"A stealth device." Was Quincy's response to her reaction. "Smoke from   
the damaged Boomer can be seen to avoid a man-shaped area." The display froze   
to confirm what Quincy had just told her. "_That_ is why he had not been   
seen on the grounds by our security cameras. It is not yet known if   
it is totally undetectable."  
"Even it just affects _light_, sir, then combining it with a   
radar-absorbing material would make a machine totally impossible to detect."  
"Yes." He swiveled his chair to face Matagan. "What have you found out  
about this...Crystal Knight?"  
With a slight grimace, Matagan shook her head. "Not much information  
is available and considering that stealth device...I'm not surprised." She  
took a deep breath. "His armour seems to employ many abilities of a technology  
we have yet to be able to totally explain, though some of our theorists  
do not find them impossible. The light absorption abilities of his armour are  
likely the source of the suit's power, drawing energy from ambient light so  
that lasers merely give the suit more energy to use. Flexible areas reflect  
a laser's energy. How powerful a laser it can do so with is unknown. Strength  
enhancement is likely a system similar to the Knight Sabers hardsuits, but  
radically different in outward appearance. His swords..." She had to shake  
her head. "The theorists speculate that they are shells of diamond in the  
shape of a sword created from carbon atoms in the air." Smiling sardonically,  
she continued, "_How_ they are created is giving some of them headaches. One  
idea is some form of airborne nanites, though that does not seem likely. The  
energy fist attack is probably a field that draws electrons around the hand  
until it creates a plasma energized by the suit just before release." She  
shook her head. "That and the stealth device are all we have found of the   
suit's abilities."  
Quincy steepled his hands together in thought. "I have heard rumors  
that it also saved some girl from a fatal injury. Interesting." After a few  
minutes, he asked, "Have you found a pattern to his movements?"  
"There does not seem to be any pattern or reason, besides stopping  
renegade Boomers, that he is using and tracking him coming and leaving the  
times when he _is_ sighted fighting has been impossible with that cloak. The  
rapidity of his arrival, sometimes even before ADPolice get to the scene,   
suggests some advanced tracking and motive systems as well."  
"Hmm... Quite the enigma."  
"Yes sir."  
"Once more information is obtained about this...Crystal Knight we will  
have to have a...talk with him. For now, we shall take care of the Knight  
Sabers. Their suits are not important to Genom and their interference in  
several of our projects so far have decided me to have them taken care of."  
He swiveled his chair to face the stilled image of the cloaked Crystal Knight.  
"Take only one out first so that the rest will be easier later. You  
may go."  
"Yes sir." She turned and walked out of the large, dark office.  
As she descended in the elevator, Matagan reached down behind her leg  
and rubbed at a very faint, white scar.   
*Largo may have forced his way in here but the chairman outwitted him  
nevertheless. I thought I was dying after that monster destroyed our boomers;  
the pain that I _know_ that had been here felt like it. It was gone when   
I recovered consciousness. Somehow I was healed, but by who? It looks like   
I was cut near an important artery and I would have bled to death   
if it had. Also,* Matagan straightened up and regarded the city skyline,   
*my head has felt odd ever since that night. I've always followed my   
instincts but lately they've been much more accurate.*  
Matagan frowned.  
*What on Earth _happened_ to me after I fell unconscious that night?*_

_"I'm telling you, Darlene, that you should go out and go out with a  
nice _man_ sometime. I've never heard you even _mention_ anything about trying   
to get one yourself. You wouldn't have any trouble _I_ would think."  
Darlene was hard pressed not to laugh out loud at Linna's comment.  
The foursome, consisting of the usual Priss, Nene, Linna, and herself, were  
being treated at Linna's place for supper after a particularly good week  
in the stock market. Priss was rolling her eyes while Nene, who knew about  
Darlene's position about this, was similarly trying not to laugh as  
they all sat around the kitchen table.   
A little while after being told about Darlene's male beginnings, Nene   
had teasingly brought up the subject of whether or not her friend thought   
she and the others were attractive. While Darlene was still attracted to   
females, she told Nene that she had regarded Nene and the others as just   
good friends while in her female form for too long to think of them in   
the way Nene suggested. It seemed weird even to herself but she couldn't   
really explain it any better.   
"Let's just say I have other things on my mind right now, Linna."  
"I hear Sylvie and Anri finally found an apartment," Priss put in.  
"Yup. They're great company, but I _do_ like having my house to  
myself." To herself, Darlene thought, *And silence at night to sleep too.*  
"Like Priss." Nene giggled when both Darlene and Priss made a face  
at her at the same time.  
Darlene reposited Linna's comment further. "I think you would be in a   
much better position Linna, if you _kept_ what _you_ 'got'. You dumped another  
one last _week_." She turned to Priss and Nene. "We should set up a betting   
pool to see how fast it takes her to drop the next one. Make a fortune  
if everybody bets it takes more than ten days."  
Linna was about to angrily retort when a, now familiar, sound  
reached Darlene's ears. The three Knight Sabers quickly stopped the beeping  
coming from their watches and sheepishly looked at her.  
She sighed. "Your friend again? Time to go then."  
"We're very sorry, Darlene," Nene sorrowfully said.  
Darlene waved her hand as she got up from her seat and went towards  
the door. "No problem. I've gotten used to it by now." Just before she closed  
the door behind her, Darlene commented, "You _really_ should ask Sylia about  
those noisy beepers." She swiftly left and closed the door before anyone   
could say anything..  
Linna and Priss stared in shock at where their friend had left.  
"You think she knows?" Linna worriedly asked Priss.  
Priss snorted. "Actually, I'd be surprised if she _didn't_ by now.  
These watches _are_ obvious." She noticed Nene quickly getting ready to leave.  
"_You_ don't look very concerned about this, Nene."  
Starting, Nene tried to look confident. "I don't think Darlene would  
_tell_ anyone, Priss. She's a pretty good friend."  
"Riiight..." Priss thought Nene knew something more, but didn't press   
the issue right now since they had to hurry._

_An hour later, all four Knight Sabers were suited up and being driven  
to their destination by Mackie in the van.  
"Why are we going outside city limits again, Sylia?" Linna asked   
queriously. "I didn't get all the details straight when you told us before."  
Her helmet was currently off so her questioning expression was visible to  
the others.  
"A valuable piece of experimental equipment was stolen from our current  
client a few days ago by a small group of Boomers. Several attempts to recover  
it have met with some unusual resistance which our clients are not prepared to   
deal with. The piece has been moved to a location just outside Mega-Tokyo and  
is isolated enough that our activates will not attract attention. It   
appears that it is merely a temporary, not very well defended location and   
was only used because there was nothing better available for the moment.  
I've been told it will not remain at this position long so we will strike   
tonight."  
"'Unusual resistance', huh?" Priss snorted. "Sounds like we'll be busy  
on this job."  
Sylia smiled briefly inside her closed helmet before continuing. "The  
building, in which our objective currently resides, is in the middle of a   
large clearing. There are no _visible_ defenses which makes me suspect   
that there are a few nasty surprises waiting for us." She turned to   
Nene. "Nene, you use your suit's sensors to scan the area when we get   
there while the rest of us go for the building."  
"Sure, Sylia" Nene was glad she would be able to use her   
specialty on this job as she knew fighting wasn't exactly her strong point.  
Soon the van arrived near the target site and dropped the four off  
before leaving the area. Mackie would return when Sylia gave the order to   
pick them up later. Moving quickly through the trees, using short bursts   
from their jet packs, they soon came near the edge of the clearing with   
the small building in the middle. Linna scouted ahead while Nene scanned the   
path that would take the others quickly towards the building, and found   
some interesting things waiting for them.   
"Sylia, there seems to be several remote-controlled mines in random  
patterns under the ground that would be invisible to ordinary sensors and   
even I'm having trouble clearly seeing them."  
"Can you jam them?"  
"I'll have to enter the clearing to make sure all of the mines are safe  
from here to the building."  
"Very well, we'll have to be quick then. No telling if they have   
something else to surprise us with if they have the time."   
Linna came back and reported what she had seen. "There are three   
people surrounding the building. Most likely Boomers."  
"They must be decoys so that some poor slob would walk into the mines."  
Priss grinned inside the helmet. "Won't _they_ be the surprised ones."  
Sylia decided. "Linna, Priss, we'll rush the building and get the  
component after destroying the Boomers. Nene, you jam those mines in case they  
get the chance to try to detonate them. All right, everybody?"  
"Okay!" The other three chorused.  
"Knight Sabers...GO!"  
Stepping out of the forest, Nene immediately started jamming the mines  
using the gear in her hardsuit. Sylia, Priss, and Linna began jetting towards  
the building after getting her affirmation that the mines were now safe. Due  
to the clear stretch, the Boomers guarding their objective saw their approach,  
burst out of their human disguises, and waited for the intruders to come to   
them.  
Sylia was worried at their behavior. *That's odd. Those   
Boomers should appear more surprised than they do. We've gone over   
several of the mines already and they should have attempted to detonate   
them by now. So why...* Her thoughts were interrupted when she reached   
the 55-C class Boomer waiting for her and began her attack with her arm   
cannon, which her Boomer barely managed to dodge.  
Linna and Priss were starting their engagements as well, expecting   
to quickly finish off their fighting partners, when round circles in the   
ground popped up and more Boomers of the same type leaped out to join the fray.  
"What the Hell??!" Priss shouted angrily when two more Boomers joined  
the one she was currently fighting, making her leap and dodge more often. This  
was happening with Linna and Sylia too. Fortunately, the Boomers couldn't   
attack them three at a time or they would risk hitting each other and not   
their enemy. Oddly, they didn't seem to be trying all that hard, but it   
was enough to keep them all furiously busy.  
"Nene! Why didn't your sensors pick these up?" Sylia called out on their  
radio when she got the chance.  
"I don't know!" The upset Nene shouted back. "They just appeared on  
my scanners. The hiding places they were in must be _very_ heavily shielded in  
order to evade my suit!"  
"Dammit!" Priss narrowly missed being hit by a heat blast. "Who could  
make _that_ kind of goddamn equipment?!"  
"Only one company I know of." Sylia quietly said as she fought.  
They all thought the same name.  
Genom._

_Smiling slightly with satisfaction,, Genom executive Ms. Matagan  
regarded the scene being shown on several monitors. The target that she   
had decided upon was all alone and the others were too busy to help even   
if they wanted to.  
"Perfect."  
One of the few operators working under her on this assignment turned a   
head in her direction.  
"The second force is now ready for Phase 2."  
Matagan's smile vanished and she was all business. "Excellent. When  
I give the word, execute it."  
The operator who had spoken seemed puzzled. "Why so many, sir?"  
"I want the other three _surviving_ members to get the maximum  
psychological impact," the smile surfaced again, "as well as making sure that  
the blue/pink Knight Saber is terminated." Another reason she kept to   
herself.   
*I'm not telling an underling that I had some damned strong feeling  
that a lot of firepower would be needed.*  
After waiting a few more seconds, she calmly said:  
"Do it."_

_Sylia and Linna had destroyed a Boomer each making it easier to fight  
now while Priss had destroyed two, leaving the one she had originally started  
out with. Their suits were a little battered but Priss felt they should   
be able to finish off the remaining Boomers without much more trouble.  
Suddenly, a powerful radio pulse was emitted from an unknown source  
that easily cut through the interference Nene was generating.  
Making every mine in the field detonate.  
While the building where the fight was being played out was clear of  
mines, the area where Nene stood was not. Several of the powerful mines   
exploded around her and she screamed in pain and surprise as the powerful   
force battered her terribly inside her suit. She fell facedown on the ground.  
"NENE!!" cried the fighting Knight Sabers. The Boomers they were  
fighting stopped and leaped towards another area of the now-devastated   
clearing, taking advantage of their targets' distracted attention.   
However, the clearing was no longer empty in that area. More scanner-  
invisible hiding places had been planted there and their contents had jumped  
out when the mines had detonated. They were Boomers, but not 55-C's.  
Instead, they were BU-88's, or as they were called: Double Eight Ball Boomers.  
Made especially for the army, the 'Debbies' were mostly mobile missile   
launchers capable of taking out a sizable attacking force with just one unit.  
They were modeled after the standard combat boomer, without the bazooka  
arm, two feet taller, slightly more bulkier for their size, and pitch black.  
They packed five missiles on each leg, two in the torso, and four apiece  
on the arms. An additional twenty in a backpack module could be attached to   
the back for extra firepower. Their armour was resistant to their own   
missile's heat exhaust and cooled rapidly to avoid heat sensors. Mobile,   
large, and powerful, they were the ideal missile support system.  
Ten now stood in the clearing and were facing a fallen Nene's direction.  
Priss saw them in a firing position. "Debbies!? No! Nene!!" She started  
for her friend, knowing she would be too late. Linna and Sylia   
started moving too when they saw the double eights but their hearts sank   
as they realized it as well.  
Four of the 88s had their missile packs on and were turned around to  
fire them upon the target they had acquired before. Two lone missiles launched  
ahead before all of the turned around and forward facing BU-88s sent the rest  
of the missiles, trained on the prone figure, to their objective. Some went  
high, low, to the left, and to the right, in order for most to hit close   
to the target and not be caught in another missile's explosion.  
In her angry and horrified rush, Priss saw the first two missiles   
hit. First behind Nene and then in front of her. Nene was blown upwards   
in the first explosion and Priss had seen her cracked armour begin to   
come apart before the second explosion obscured the heart-wrenching   
sight of Nene starting to fall back towards the ground.  
The other one hundred and ninety-eight missiles that followed...hit.  
A fair portion of them detonated well outside Nene's position from the force  
of those before that blew, but not enough.  
Priss was hurled back by the multiple explosions and fell at her stunned  
friend's feet. Silently, Sylia helped Priss back up and the three looked at  
the fiery, smoking crater that was where Nene had been. Linna went to her  
knees as she realized her much-loved friend was gone and Priss clenched her  
fists in a rage.  
"A trap."  
As the other two slowly looked at their leader, Sylia repeated herself  
in a detached voice. "A trap. All a trap to get one of us so that the rest  
would be more vulnerable." She paused. "And Nene paid for my stupidity."  
Voice saturated in uncontrollable rage, Priss shouted at Sylia, "Like  
HELL it's _all_ your fault! NONE OF US SAW IT!! Damn Genom!!" She whirled to  
the direction where the Boomers obscured by smoke still stood and   
prepared to attack.  
Whipping her head around, Sylia divined Priss's action. "NO! I do NOT  
want to lose another today!"  
"I'm not going to just _stand_ here while those bastards are..."  
Linna's grief-filled voice cut Priss off. "What's wrong with the   
smoke?" Sylia and Priss turned and saw what she was talking about.  
The dense smoke coming from the crater was even now flowing past the  
grieving and surprised Knight Sabers on either side while leaving their area  
free of opaque smoke. They gasped when a dark but familiar figure emerged,  
with smoke hiding his legs, that carried a more than welcome blue and pink  
package that didn't look a bit damaged.  
"Nene!" They rushed towards the Crystal Knight with suddenly lightened  
hearts.  
And stopped in shock when they got a better look at Nene's rescuer.  
The Crystal Knight's armour was in bad shape. There were large cracks   
in every black plate and his shimmering, flexible mesh ripped and torn. Part   
of the chestplate was destroyed and a bloody wound in the lower ribcage was   
visible. The helmet was laced with cracks as well.  
The Knight's eyes were glowing blue like the time when he had destroyed  
Largo.  
Linna stepped forwards and extended her arms slowly and carefully to   
the Knight, who placed the still form of Nene into them. She opened the visor   
and cried out with relief, "She's alive!" Greatfully, she looked back up to   
Nene's rescuer. "Thank y...OH!" she gasped.  
Sylia was relieved beyond belief but was puzzled at her friend's  
outburst. "Linna, what..?" Then she and Priss saw as well and understood   
Linna's shock.   
The dark armour had not protected it's wearer completely. It was now  
evident with Nene out of the way and the covering smoke gone. Shattered,   
the left arm's armour ended halfway between shoulder and elbow...along   
with the arm. This was repeated at the left knee with more shattered   
armour.  
*How can he be standing?* Sylia was shocked beyond belief. *For  
that matter, how did he have Nene in two arms when he has only _one_?*  
Priss was more forthright. "How the _hell_ are you _doing_   
that??"  
The Knight's reply was to turn towards the smoke, step away a   
little ways into it, and stop.  
"Did you hear..."  
"Priss! My God, he's lost an arm and a leg! He could be in shock!"   
Linna angrily replied.  
"He should also be on the ground unconscious from blood loss!"  
"I think he's waiting." Priss and Linna turned to Sylia when she   
spoke. "The smoke is dissipating and he's facing the Boomer's direction   
exactly." To herself she thought, *What will he do in this state? What   
_can_ he do in this state?* Sylia regarded the slowly more visible   
Knight.   
*I guess we'll see.*_

_A cold and pleased smile was on Matagan's face as she viewed the now  
smoke obscured screen that had shown the stunned Knight Sabers a minute before.  
"Nicely done, gentlemen," she addressed her employees. "We will keep  
the Boomers around for confirmation, but recall them if the other three attack.  
No sense wasting valuable equipment when it will likely take less to finish  
off the other three later. A good night's work indeed."  
A puzzled technician looked up from a screen. "That's odd," he   
muttered.  
Sensing something was amiss, Matagan quickly walked over.   
"What is it?"  
"That smoke is blowing northeast."  
She didn't see the reason for his concern. "The problem...?"  
"The wind is blowing in a southerly direction. It can't _go_ that way  
unless something is _making_ it do that."  
Matagan frowned. *That _is_ strange.*  
"Sir!" another tech monitoring the screens called out. "Something's  
happening!"  
Walking back to see for herself, she noticed the oddly-behaving smoke  
dying down. A figure was slowly being revealed, as well as the Knight Sabers,  
with the green Saber holding an unpleasant surprise.  
"No!" Matagan smashed a fist down on a console after seeing the   
unexpected sight of a whole blue/pink Knight Saber, startling the tech. She   
shook in rage as she realized the only way the Knight Saber could have   
survived the attack and glared at the dark figure standing shown on the   
monitor.  
"_Damn_ that meddling Crystal Knight!"  
Her eyes widened as she realized something else.  
*That's why so much firepower was needed. But how did I know?*  
*_How_?!*_

_The Boomers were looking angrily at the now revealed group of humans.  
They didn't like failing to achieve their mission objectives.  
One of the 55-Cs spoke up. "So, you somehow managed to save your little  
companion, humans? We can _fix_ that little problem."  
"Just _try_ it, junkpile!" Priss shouted.  
"We intend to." The Boomer looked to the silent Crystal Knight and   
noticed the missing left arm. "Lose something, Crystal Knight?" it amusedly  
barked out. "I would have expected you to be crying in pain like the weak flesh  
you are but," it saw the glowing eyes and speculated, "perhaps you are _not_  
human? Then why save the pink fleshed one? Am I right?" it called out.   
From the cracks and tears in the armour, blue light slowly built to  
shine outwards. The Crystal Knight raised his remaining right arm, had his  
palm facing the grouped force of Boomers, and grated out a raspy reply.  
"Wrong."  
Blue light flared and became blue fire that filled the cracks of the  
Knight's armour. The glowing blue eyes became brighter as he added something   
else before Knight Sabers or Boomers could react.  
"CRYSTAL KNIGHT...." Blue flame burst out of the armour's tears and   
cracks to arc towards the space in front of his outstretched palm. The flame  
spiraled together to be formed into an intensely blue, blazing cone with   
the wide open end facing the Boomers. It grew in power as the flow   
continued.   
The eyes then flared.   
"...FINAL STRIKE!"  
The Boomers saw a small sun appear within the inside of the cone.  
Then they were no more._

_"NO!" Matagan was furious as the monitors now showed only static. "WHAT  
HAPPENED!!?"  
Employees worked furiously at their consoles, trying to get the Boomers  
reconnected and the hidden cameras around the clearing operational.  
Finally, as she was loosing patience, the leader of the technical   
group faced Matagan, shaking his head as he gave his report.  
"From what we can tell...all of the Boomers we sent have been   
destroyed. The cameras from the side-effects."  
"What?! Don't give me riddles. Give. Me. Facts!" Matagan icily said   
as she tried to regain her temper.  
"The brief readings we got from the camera and Boomer sensors tell us  
that an EM pulse fried the sensitive camera's circuitry. Not the Boomer's.   
They are shielded against a pulse this weak. However, what must have   
been some kind of atomic reaction," Matagan sucked in her breath in   
shock, "that produced such a strong pulse, likely vaporized the Boomers   
just after they registered the forerunning EM radiation."  
"Vaporized..."  
"And if you ask how..." He shook his head. "I have no idea. Whatever  
that strange blue energy was...I've never seen anything like it in my life."  
Numbly, Matagan turned to regard the static-filled screens.  
*Failure. How do I explain this to Quincy?*  
Her mind was blank._

_The three Knight Sabers looked on with awe as they regarded what the  
Knight had done. Where the group of Boomers once stood, a gouge had been   
taken out of the earth. The blast of yellow-red energy had turned killing   
machines into atoms and had easily streaked out to cut a wide, fan shaped   
area of destruction into the surrounding, unpopulated, tree-covered   
region. The fires from the blast were starting to die now since the area was   
moist from a good week of rain.  
"Priss! The Knight!" Linna shouted.  
Quickly, Priss rushed over and caught the Crystal Knight as he slowly  
collapsed. She mirrored Linna and held him like Linna was carrying Nene.   
"Jeez. His armour's light."  
"Good, because after that little display it won't take very long before  
someone comes to investigate." Sylia glanced around at the area where the trap  
had been set.   
"Let's go home."_

_Chapter Eleven  
\--------------_

_"What can we _do_? Even if we take him to a hospital, how do we take  
that armour off? There's no opening seams and even damaged it still looks   
pretty tough," a concerned voice spoke, penatrating a veil that wrapped the  
consciousness of the listener.   
Slowly, Twister came out of the trance-like state he was in that  
cut off pain he knew was still lurking in the background and tried to become   
more fully aware of his surroundings. He cracked open his eyes.  
Sylia had long ago prepared a large room with medical equipment   
beside their training area at Dr. Raven's for potental cases where it   
would be impossible to go to an ordinary hospital. Two beds occupied the   
room; an unarmoured, unharmed, unconscious Nene, still in her softsuit for   
her powered armour on one, and the battered form of the Crystal Knight   
on the other. The other three Knight Sabers were in a group over by one   
of the diagnosing machines installed in the wall, likely discussing   
what to do about their 'guest'. Linna and Priss had changed into their   
normal clothes but Sylia had not, having been too busy checking on both   
Nene and the Crystal Knight.  
He recognized that the voice had been Linna's.  
"That's true. It seems to be made completely of diamond, which  
wieghs MUCH less than it should, and that makes it difficult to scan to   
see how injured he may be. What's even more remarkable is that it seems   
to be repairing itself slowly," Sylia mused, her arms crossed in front of   
her as she stated that bit of information.  
Priss glanced at the battered form on the bed. "Well, we'd better   
think of something quick. I don't think it's doing the same to _him_,"   
she said sarcastically.  
"True," Twister weakly got out in a barely audiable croak.  
The three started, then rushed over to his bed. He noticed Mackie   
also appeared to be in the room, along with Dr. Raven who had come to offer   
advice on removing the armour, both watching the person on the bed who had   
saved Nene. Twister wondered if Mackie was concerned or just studying his   
armour. Likely both; Mackie was a pretty decent person, despite the   
occasional voyorism the others sometimes complained about.   
"How are you?" asked a concerned Sylia.  
"Coffin handy?" Twister rasped. Progress. He had upgraded from a   
croak.  
"Huh. That good, Bullet?" Priss jokingly commented, trying to   
lighten the mood of the room, the guy didn't look good at all with those   
injuries and missing limbs.  
"Nene?"  
"She's just fine. Still sleeping," Linna reassured him.  
"Good."  
"Knight, how can we get this armour off to help you? You need serious  
help though your major arteries and veins in your...missing limbs have been   
sealed by the explosion's heat."  
Twister struggled to answer, he did kinda want to live. "I seal. What  
little sense had left after knock to head did that. Dumb. Should've Healed,  
but angry at what happened to Nene. Wanted to keep her safe and blow  
Boomers away."  
"I can relate to that," Priss softly said. Privately she wondered  
why this strange individual was concerned for Nene's welfare.  
"Heh. I block pain now. Almost all energy gone with final blast.   
Hungry. I take armour off now but pain come back when armour off cause of   
change. Get ready."  
Puzzled over his strange remarks, Sylia nevertheless got a   
painkiller/sedative from the medical supplies as Twister prepared to take   
off his armour.  
"This not..." Darkness covered the battered Knight, startling everyone  
as the Knight continued, "...take loooooaaaaaAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!"  
In the process of changing to female form, as that had been   
the form Twister had been in before donning the armour, the mental   
ability he had unconsciously used, but now consciously kept up to   
distance himself from the pain, seemed to rapidly dwindle away as   
Mind changed to Magic. Darlene screamed as the mental power being used to   
block the incredible pain disappeared from the change into female form.   
Her normal clothes, those she had been wearing to dinner with Linna and   
the others, were on her now; they loosely covered Darlene's missing limbs.  
Shocked beyond belief at the incredible change and the familiarity of  
the person, Sylia still managed to wrestle, along with an equally amazed   
Linna and Priss's help, Darlene's remaining right arm down and inject   
the painkiller/sedative. It took almost immediate effect; Darlene's pain   
faded away and her scream died. Blinking at the sudden relief, she   
looked up at her disbelieving friends, smiled faintly at them as the jig was   
up, and felt the sedative part of the injection kick in.  
Drowsily, she chuckled, "Surprises guys." And fell asleep.  
The five who had seen the incredible change stood in shocked silence.  
"_Darlene_ is the..." Linna slowly began to say.  
"...Crystal Knight!!?! What the fuck?!?" Priss finished   
incredulously. She backed up a step, shaking her head as if to clear away  
something inside. There had been some remarkable things she had seen being   
part of the Knight Sabers, but this... *No _way_! It's just not possible!*  
"But...how? The Crystal Knight was a _guy_ from what I saw through   
those big holes in his..ah...her armour." Mackie stammered out.  
"And where _did_ the armour go?" Dr. Raven asked curiously. He   
had been shocked too but less visibly as his curiosity over the   
disappearence of the suit overrode his surprise.  
Seeing the severely wounded, now-revealed friend of her companions,  
Sylia ignored the questions arising in her own mind and focused on helping  
this person, however unusual, in need first. If Darlene survivied she   
could ask them later, if not... She quickly grabbed a sharp knife and handed   
it to a shell-shocked Linna, who snapped out of it as she felt the knife   
placed into her hand. "Linna, cut off her clothes so we can bandage what   
we can. I need to see what we _can_ do." She turned away to get some   
bandages when Linna nodded her affirmation, eager for for a task that   
occupied her mind with something else.  
As Linna started to do so, Priss, recovering from the shock,   
stared at the friend she thought she had known. She didn't like being   
tricked. *Then again,* she sighed mentally, *Sylvie did the same thing to   
me, which I know she thought was the best thing to do to survive. And I   
guess surviving is probably Darlene's reason for hiding..._this_. Maybe   
that's why I wanted to be friends with them both. Even though,* she   
looked over Darlene's battered form as Linna struggled to cut through the   
same pant leg she had started on, *I don't know what exactly she is.   
Sylvie may be a Boomer but I don't think Genom can build a Boomer that   
changes sexes like this.* She saw Darlene's stump of an arm, glimpsed bone,   
and looked away with a shiver. *No. Boomers are metal not bone.*   
Then Priss spotted something flickering on Darlene's neck. "Hey!   
What's this?" she said loudly, trying to distract herself. Stepping   
closer, Priss gently removed something that shimmered in and out of   
visibility from around Darlene's neck and walked up to a curious Dr.   
Raven and Mackie with it. It appeared to be a largish diamond to her eyes   
as she dropped it into the Doctor's palm, incidentily diverting Mackie's   
attention from a slowly being undressed Darlene. "Any ideas, Pops?"  
"Doctor!" Doc. Raven absently replied automatically as he studied   
the strange, flickering crystal Priss had dropped into his hands. He   
carefully looked at it when it could be seen. "Hmm... Possibly something   
to control that armour perhaps?"  
"And damaged along with the rest of it?" Mackie interjected. He   
seemed torn between looking at the strange object and the slowly becoming  
more exposed Darlene. He was wincing as he saw more damage revealed on her.  
"Perhaps. Come on then and we'll look at it. We certainly can't do  
much here." Dr. Raven firmly guided a slightly reluctant Mackie out of the  
emergency room. He didn't too have much trouble since Mackie was just as   
curious as he about the strange object.  
Linna was sweating heavily when Priss turned to see how she was doing.  
"What's taking _you_ so long?"  
"This..._stuff_," Linna grunted as she finished opening another sleeve,  
"is..._really_ hard...to cut! Can't believe...it could...be...so _tough_.   
Done!" Setting down the knife, Linna carefully lifted Darlene's body,   
with Priss' help, to get all the clothing out of the way. The view wasn't   
good to look at.  
"Shit," Priss softly stated and Linna silently agreed with her.  
In addition to the missing left arm and leg, Darlene's body now sported  
various bruises, cuts, and, to Priss's experienced eyes, broken ribs as well  
as the right leg being broken, adding insult to even more injury. Possibly   
hidden internal injuries as well.  
Sylia turned at the quiet exclamation and inhaled with dismayed   
surprise. She shook that counterproductive feeling off before going over   
and carefully examining the unconscious Darlene with what medical knowledge   
she had.  
After a minute, she stood up straight and sighed.  
"It would be better if she were in a hospital, but I doubt that would   
be a good idea until I know what exactly is going on here. As it is..." She   
looked at a worried Linna and a frowning Priss, "I think she'll be okay here.  
I'll have to set that leg and bandage the ribs but otherwise she should pull  
through since I don't _think_ there is any hemorrhaging, which is a miracle.  
Or maybe not, given she's already surprised me greatly already."  
As Priss became much less tense at the news, Linna breathing a   
sigh of relief, a groaning sound that was getting louder from the other bed   
alerted them that Nene was waking up.  
"Priss! Cover her up!" Sylia didn't want Nene to see how badly her  
friend was hurt and nodded when Priss quickly covered Darlene with a   
folded sheet that had been on a nearby shelf.  
"Uhhhh...." Nene groaned again and finally opened her eyes. All   
around her were the rest of the Knight Sabers, confusing her with   
expressions of relief and...something else. Worry? She blinked as  
memory returned with violent surprise. Springing straight up on the bed,   
Nene quickly looked at her smiling friends with open confusion. "The   
_mines_! How...? What happened?" Checking herself out rapidly and finding   
she wasn't hurt, Nene was even more confused. "I'm not hurt?? But..."  
Trying to calm her down, Sylia started speaking, "Nene..."  
Unfortunately, Nene had been looking wildly about and had locked on  
a familiar face that shouldn't have been in the Knight Saber's emergency room.  
"D-Darlene?" she stammered before jumping out of her bed and running over to  
helplessly look at the injured face of her obviously hurt and unconscious   
friend. When Sylia and the others quietly came over to stand behind her,   
Nene turned her tearful visage to the Knight Saber's leader.  
"S-sylia..._what happened_?!?"   
Sylia put her hands on Nene's shoulders, looked at her right in the  
eye, and gently said, "Nene, calm down. It won't change things." Seeing her  
friend relax as Nene realized the truth Sylia was saying, she went on.  
"Unbelievable as it may sound, Darlene saved you from a missile attack, after  
you were knocked unconscious by the mines...as the Crystal Knight. The missiles  
meant for you wounded her pretty badly." Sylia was surprised at Nene's   
reaction to this information.  
"Oh no!" Nene looked tearful. "I should have scanned the area   
better!" She quickly turned to stand beside the wounded Darlene again,   
hands together under her chin with worry as she looked at the face of her   
friend.   
"Sylia said she should be okay, Nene..." Linna tried to reassure her.  
Priss, however, like Sylia, realized something from Nene's reaction.  
"Wait a minute here!" She narrowed her eyes as she looked with a growing   
suspicion at Nene. "You certainly don't _look_ very surprised that Darlene's   
the Crystal Knight! Don't you find this is a _little_ odd??" Nene's   
suddenly guiltly face confirmed it. "You _knew_!!" Priss cried angrily.   
Sylia was impassive; Linna tried not to let her own feelings of surprise  
and anger show, and was failing.  
Looking down at her feet now, Nene hesitantly spoke, "Well..."  
"Told few day ago," interjected a raspy voice no one had expected to   
hear.  
The Knight Sabers started and looked at the sheet-covered figure.  
Darlene's eyes were half open and seemed a little defocused as she formed a   
small smile on her face. She added, "Thought it time. Ow. Bet' tell Sylvie  
an' Anri I slightly laid up." Darlene smirked weakly at her joke, the drug  
making clear speech a task.  
"I'm sorry, Darlene!" Nene cried out before Sylia could say anything.  
Darlene blinked slowly. "No' fault. Trap. They too prepar'." Seeing  
that Nene wasn't very reassured, she added, "Don' worry. Hopeful' not   
permant'." Before Nene could ask what Darlene was talking about, Sylia   
interrupted her and started asking a few questions of her own she wanted   
answered.  
"Darlene, how did your armour change you? And _why_?" She hoped   
the answer wouldn't be an unpleasant one.  
Smirking again, albeit weakly, Darlene directed her answer to   
Nene. "Water. Hot. Head pleas'." Turning her head back to Sylia while Nene   
went over to a sink to carry out her request, Darlene added, "Painkiller   
stuff doesn' last lon'."  
Sylia raised an eyebrow. "It _should_ have for your body weight."  
Before Darlene could reply to that, Nene returned and before anybody  
could object, poured a glass of hot water on Darlene's head. Blinking the  
water away, the now _male_ Twister smiled at Sylia, Linna, and Priss' amazed  
expressions.   
He weakly chuckled. "Ther'. Answered. I'm jus' full of surprises.   
Ow." Grimacing a little at the now-returning pain, tried to use that   
mental trick he had discovered and applied before. It worked again and he   
relaxed as the pain became remote. His stomach growled, reminding him   
that he had drained himself to nil and had no spare energy for Healing. "I   
_really_ need somethin' to eat," Twister apologetically said.  
"I'll get something!" Nene cried before anyone could say anything and  
rushed out of the room. Everyone stared at her exit.  
Twister closed his eyes and sighed. "O' boy. Tha's no' good."  
"Nene _is_ acting a bit strange," Linna worriedly commented.  
"Ah, she's fine," Priss distractically interjected, more   
concerned with the issue of her strange friend laying down on on bed.   
"She had a _very_ close call tonight, Linna. That will take time to  
fully recover from. Now..." Sylia turned back to Twister, who had reopened  
his eyes and was smiling somewhat more weakly in the face of her stern   
expression. The leader of the Knight Sabers crossed her arms, arching an   
eyebrow.   
"What _exactly_ is going on here?" she demanded.  
Priss pulled up a chair, turned it around, and sat on it, arms   
resting on the back of the chair. With a somewhat sardonic expression,   
she said, "Now _this_ should be interesting."  
"Gee. Thanks, Priss." Twister sourly commented, making her grin   
despite the strangeness of the situation, but he reluctantly looked  
up at Sylia, who hadn't wavered an inch, and started talking. "I tol' Nene  
this already..." he inhaled carefully; he _did_ have broken ribs.  
"...and _was_ gonna tell you later, but I'll star' from the   
beginning."_

_The brief explanation took a little time since Nene had come back  
with some form of energy food bars that were usually used after a really   
exhausting mission as they were very nutritous, containing needed vitamins   
and minerials. She hand-fed the injured Twister with them, much to his   
mild embarrassment and irritation, during his story. The irritation   
seemed to bring Nene back to her old self and she even crossly told him   
that he was acting like _Priss_. When both Twister and Priss indignantly   
said "He/I is/am not!" simutaniously, he and Priss stared at each other in   
surprise, the others laughed at this.  
The story he gave them was the same one he had told Sylvie, Anri, and   
Nene. One devoid of magic but leaving in psionics, or substituting   
psionic power for magical power when retelling some wilder parts of his   
story. As to the shape-changing, he just repeated that he didn't know how   
it worked and that he only had psi power while male, the reason he fought  
as a guy. The armour was now a sophisticated creation of his mental powers  
that he half-unconsciously made and wasn't sure himself how it all worked.  
He did leave in the parts of the feats the martial arts in Ranma's universe  
did, Linna shook her head at some ki attacks he mentioned and he promised   
to show her the one that he had learned from Ranma later.  
Sylia was more inclined to believe the physical feats given she had   
roughly scanned Darlene's unusual body already. She theorized to herself   
that whatever alterations had occured to Twister had seemingly adapted him to   
the environment of the last universe, privately intrigued at the   
abilities of such human beings. A more detailed examination would likely   
be most informative.  
Twister's story was given some credulance when the bars he was   
eating gave him enough energy to Heal his broken ribs and most of  
the bruises and cuts on his body, much to his relief and the other's wonder.   
The flashing blue aura and his amused, "Five broken ribs in my   
chest...five broken ribs...if one of those ribs should happen to   
Heal...," FLASH! "ow...four broken ribs in my chest. Oh,..." caused   
Priss to alternately watch the amazing specticle and wince, his   
singing was painful to her. She wanted to hit him to stop the 'singing'   
but she canceled the impulse as he was too banged up at the moment. Later   
though...  
After finishing his story, and feeling much better from the   
Healing, something occurred to Twister. Something was missing._

_"Where's my armour?"  
Linna blinked. "You caused it to disappear Dar...ah, Twister." *I'll  
never get used to that,* Linna thought to herself.  
Shaking his head, Twister corrected himself. His voice clear of   
the drug's effects, his accelerated metabolism while Healing having quickly   
burned it off. "Sorry. I meant: Where is my armour in it's pendant form?"  
"You mean that blinking in and out of sight thing was your _armour_??"   
Priss gaped.  
"Right. I forgot to mention that...blinking?" The thought went   
through Twister's mind for a second before he said in a more alarmed   
tone, "BLINKING?! It's _not_ supposed to do _that_!"  
Sylia was out the door in an instant, crying, "Mackie!"_

_A few moments earlier, Mackie had picked up the strange object in his  
hand since Doc. Raven had deemed it safe due to the fact that nothing harmful  
seemed to be eminating from it. He was fascinated by the way it flickered   
in and out of sight by a means the Doctor or himself hadn't figured out yet.  
*Now, if I can figure out how it works and install the system  
into one of _our_ transports...* Looking at it closer, he wondered how  
Darlene had activated it. No connections were apparent on the surface of  
the diamond, which was the substance he figured it to be. With a bit of   
frustrated humor, Mackie thought, *Maybe she just thinks 'armour on'   
and...WHAA?!*  
"Mackie!" He heard his sister cry out but he was a little too busy  
being disoriented to reply. His clothes seemed to have vanished; something  
else was covering him now. Unfortunately, that something wasn't meant for his   
size and when he took an instinctive step forward, he fell noisily with a   
crash and a yell.  
"Yahhh!"   
"Mackie!" Sylia called out again when she heard his cry and was prepared  
for the worst when she entered the workshop that he and Doc. Raven were in.  
However, when she spotted the Doctor struggling to help a slightly shrunken  
Crystal Knight up, with Mackie's arm and leg visible due to the missing pieces  
of armour, she held a hand to her mouth to cover her smile.   
"Are you okay, Mackie?" she said with some amusement.  
The cracked helmet turned in her direction, "Yeah, sis!" came out  
Mackie's voice modulated reply. "This thing's suit up procedure surprised me  
that's all. Boy is it quick!" *I wonder how it took my clothes off...*  
Doc. Raven sourly looked the armoured Mackie over. "You put it on, but  
can you get it off?"  
"I think so..." *Armour off,* Mackie thought. When nothing happened,  
Mackie started getting a little panicky. *I hope this thing's circuits   
or whatever are still functio....* A crackling noise interrupted that   
thought.  
Sylia and Doc. Raven stepped back when the sound echoed throughout the  
room. Before they could react, the Crystal Knight armour Mackie was wearing  
seemed to...puff outwards briefly. The armour promptly fell apart as it turned  
into diamond dust, leaving a clothed Mackie behind.  
He was a little uncomfortable since all his clothes were now backwards  
and inside-out. Nevertheless, he breathed a sigh of relief. At least _he_   
wasn't backwards and inside out.  
"Whew."  
Doc. Raven peered down at the pile of dust that had once been a   
formidable piece of armour.  
"Hmmm... Hardware crash."  
Nene and Linna quickly appeared at Sylia's side. They looked a little  
worried because of the sound they had heard, but when they saw Mackie's state  
of dress, they both started trying to stifle their giggles, and failing.   
This caused Mackie to flush red with embarrassment.  
"What...happened?" Linna got out with Nene still giggling beside her.  
"Mackie managed to activate the Crystal Knight armour but apparently  
it was too damaged to change back." Sylia told her as she thoughtfully looked  
at the pile of diamond dust. "I gather it too much of a strain and it fell   
apart."   
Privately, Sylia wondered about that armour. *Twister said that he   
made it with his psionic powers, but I find that somewhat hard to   
believe. Something else is afoot here, I know it. And I intend to find out   
what it is and why our unusual guest seems reluctant to tell us.*  
Meanwhile, red-faced and embarrassed, Mackie turned from glaring at   
the giggling duo to go change his clothes back the way they were.  
*Guess this is part of the price one pays for science,* Mackie glumly  
thought on the way to his room._

_Priss had stayed behind with Twister and had been about to leave  
herself when she heard Linna's faint, but amused, voice along with Sylia's   
reply. Raising her eyebrow, she turned a smirking face over to Twister.  
"Looks like I'm not the only one who can trash a suit."  
Twister groaned and lifted his remaining arm to cover his face with  
a hand. He sighed into it. "Ah, well. I guess it was time for a new model   
anyway. Back to the drawing board."_

_Priss contemplated this stranger who was no stranger. Some of  
'Darlene's' slightly strange behavior, like not having anything under her   
shirt all the time, now made perfect sense now that she had heard Twister's  
story, as well as that unusual strength. The fact that no one to her   
knowledge had really noticed anything this odd spoke a lot for Dar...Twi...,   
*Argh! I'll never get that straight!*, TWISTER'S ability to adapt.   
Still, she felt that he owed her for deceiving them for so long...and...  
*WAIT A MINUTE!!* Trying to stay calm over the important information   
she just recalled, Priss almost kicked herself. *_Darlene's_ the Crystal   
Knight...and the Knight was the Blue Bullet!!! That means... Why that...*  
Her confusion over the Darlene/Twister issue suddenly clarified itself  
while she silently raged to herself, not wanting Twister to get any more   
amusement over what he had done to annoy Priss for a very long time.  
*Sylvie's my friend and I don't care what she is. You're no worse, just   
very unusual, and I guess I don't care about that either for the same   
reasons. _But_, I will get you back for all those tickets, embarrassing   
me in front of Leon, and finally, for SITTING THERE IN FRONT OF ME   
LAUGHING TO YOURSELF WHILE I TOLD YOU WHAT YOU ALREADY KNEW!!*   
Suddenly, Priss' anger turned to vast amusement as, in a flash  
of inspiration, she decided what she would do, for a start at least. She   
smiled broadly at her idea, it was something that she was going to look   
forward to. Oh, the delicous irony..._

_Having been silent in her thoughts for a time Priss moved up to  
the bed and contemplated his remaining arm. "You certainly don't seem   
very worried about your...other arm and leg," she remarked.  
"Well, I checked while I still had energy from those bars and I   
definitely think, well, at least reasonably sure, that I can regrow them.   
Thank goodness." He sighed. "It's going to take a while and a _lot_ of   
food since I'm not just Healing something already there but re-creating   
it from scratch. I've got a perfect memory and I've scanned myself lots   
of times before so it shouldn't be too hard to do it right."  
Priss shook her head at his calm statement of something   
incredible. "That you think you can _get_ them back is damn good."   
Then she narrowed her eyes while still smiling, walked over to Twister's   
sheet-covered form and bent closer to look into his puzzled face.   
"However...I think we should..._discuss_ something, _Bullet_. Like about   
all those...speeding tickets?"  
*Uh oh. She remembered.* Twister was sweating a little now.   
"Ahhh...tickets? What tickets?" he said weakly.  
Smiling, Priss reached out and lightly tapped Twister's still broken   
leg causing him to inhale slightly in surprise from the unexpected twinge   
of pain, he had stopped using that pain trick so he felt it. "Oh,  
you know. Especially with that _perfect memory_ you said you have..."  
Twister grinned weakly as he mentally cursed himself for mentioning that part   
of his psionic powers.  
He sighed. "I'm sorry, Priss. I'll pay for the parking tickets. I   
just thought it was funn...err..." The look on Priss' face stopped him.  
She was smiling sweetly. Too sweetly.  
"Yes, you will. But you _owe_ me something fierce for not telling   
me about," she waved a hand at his body, "this, for constantly getting me   
caught in front of Leon, which could have caused me to lose my licence..."  
"You wouldn't have," Twister protested. "I made sure of that."  
"You what...? Been taking lessons from Nene? ANYway, that doesn't   
come close to making up for all you've done to me." Priss was grinning  
now. "You _owe_ me. Big time. And by your look I think you agree with me."  
Twister's expression was slightly sick and wasn't a result of his injuries.  
Cheerily, she went on. "In fact, I already _have_ something in mind..."  
He groaned._

_Chapter Twelve  
\--------------_

_With Mackie and Doc. Raven staying behind to examine the remains of  
Twister's former Crystal Knight armour, Sylia, Linna, and Nene, went back  
to talk a bit more with Twister. Slyia and Nene had taken time to change   
back into normal clothing as well.  
Nene was puzzled when they entered the emergency room. Priss looked...  
_smug_ for some reason while Twister had this resigned expression on his face.  
Priss grinned at them as they entered. "Back? Great! Me and the _Blue  
Bullet_ here just completed some unfinished...business."  
"_What_ are you talking about, Priss?" Linna asked the singer with some  
confusion. She seemed to be talking this business rather well, whereas   
Linna wasn't sure on how she felt about it. Maybe she would later when it   
finally sunk in that one of her friends could change sexes faster than   
her clothes.  
Priss just grinned while Twister's expression fell a little more as he  
sighed, "Bike maintenance. Non-psionically."  
Brows furrowed, Nene wondered what Twister meant by that until she   
realized that Priss had been ticketed quite a few times because of the 'Bullet'  
and now that she had finally found out who he was... Nene quickly hid a smile   
behind her hand but her giggles still escaped from behind it.   
Twister sourly looked at her. "Thank you for your support."  
Linna was still confused while Sylia looked amused. She too had  
divined the reason for Priss' smug smile.  
"I'm sorry." Nene looked anything _but_ sorry and was trying to stop  
her giggles when she noticed something odd she had missed before.   
"Twister... What's wrong with your sheet? It looks...funny."  
Startled at the question, Twister quickly looked at the other three   
Knight Sabers and asked, "Doesn't she know?" This might be bad...  
That response, and the now obviously absent lumps in the concealing   
fabric, told Nene what had happened to Twister when he had rescued her.  
"No..." Nene whispered in a horror filled voice. She despretely scanned  
the cloth to see if she was wrong but there was no denying the fact that  
Twister was missing most of an arm and leg. "Oh no...." Tears filled her   
eyes.  
Before anyone could react, Nene ran out of the room._

_There was a stunned silence before Twister shouted to try to get Nene  
back while Linna ran after her friend.  
"NENE! Wait! It's...!" The muffled sound of Nene's scooter fading   
away caused the shout to die in his throat. "...ok." He paused. "Damn. I   
wish..." Suddenly, Twister's eyes closed and, now asleep, he fell back   
into his pillow from the semi-sitting position he had assumed on the bed   
when Nene had left.  
Alarmed, Priss straightened from leaning on the wall. "Hey!"  
Sylia waved Priss back and calmly looked at the prone Twister. "It's  
all right, Priss. I was wondering how he was staying awake after all he had  
been through tonight. He must have been using those powers he mentioned to stay  
awake _this_ long after healing himself."  
Priss frowned at the sleeping Twister. "Idiot."  
Sylia tactfully didn't mention the times when Priss had done similar  
things.  
Linna came back shaking her head. "She put on her helmet and left  
before I could catch her." She saw Twister's current state. "He finally  
fall asleep?"  
"Yes. Nene's likely going home. You and Priss should go there as well.   
She's been through some shocks today and I think you two would help immensely."  
Sylia sighed. "I would come too but I have to make sure something like that  
trap does _not_ happen to us again. As well as keeping watch over Twister   
here."  
"Right." Linna motioned for Priss to follow her and the two of them  
left the room._

_A lone figure watched from the forest as a Genom clean-up crew removed  
the disfunctional cameras and scanners as well as those Boomers destroyed by  
the Knight Sabers. Several technitions were using various detection equipment  
around the area that the Crystal Knight had impressively blasted ten plus  
Boomers, at once, into atoms.  
The concealed form gazed at the devastation in silence.  
And smiled.  
*Impressively done. As I would expect after seeing your performance   
with Largo, Crystal Knight. Genom may not have counted your presence into their   
plans when dealing with the Knight Sabers, but I will welcome it. Indeed, I  
_want_ it.* The figure's gaze became thoughtful. *But I do need help in order  
to accomplish this safely.*  
*I will search for what I need....*_

_Slowly waking up, Twister opened his eyes and spied Sylia, calmly  
sipping some coffee, sitting on a chair and facing him.  
"Uhhhh... I hope what I think happened last time I was conscious was a   
dream." Twister checked his current state and sighed.   
"Darn it."  
"Did you want some coffee and something to eat?" Sylia inquired.   
"You've slept for twenty-four hours."  
"I'm not a coffee drinker, unlike a lot of people. But I  
would _love_ something to eat. Being totally tapped out is my current status  
at the moment."  
"Certainly. But right now I was wondering if we could talk some more."  
"Ah...sure."  
Sylia put down her cup of coffee, clasped her hands together, and  
put them on her lap. "I realize that, because of your injuries or privacy,   
you likely did not tell us _everything_ about your past. You did mention   
that your psionic powers and form changing were _imposed_ upon you after   
being taken from your home universe. Also, that you learned   
some...unusual martial arts techniques while in the universe you arrived   
in. However," Sylia calmly went on as Twister waited, a little   
nervously, for her to finish, "there _are_ some facts that I believe you   
deliberately left out or altered." Now Sylia's eyes narrowed slightly.  
"Why?"  
Twister looked away from Sylia's gaze, feeling a little ashamed.  
After a minute of thinking in silence, he decided to tell her. She might  
believe him.  
"Well...yes. I did. But...what I _have_ told you are the parts that I   
felt you would...believe."  
An eyebrow arched. "Believe? If it wasn't for the abilities   
you've shown us all, I wouldn't have believed even your altered story.   
What more is there?"  
"You live in a very...advanced earth compared to my home  
universe and the one from where I came. I thought that when you got used to   
the true parts of the story, which are weird enough, I could tell you the   
rest." He closed his eyes. "At times it's hard to believe it myself and I   
had read a lot of sci-fi and fantasy _before_ this all happened."  
Considering the person whom she had once thought to be only a   
_slightly_ unusual individual, Sylia sighed. "Just what are you trying to   
avoid telling us?"  
He paused, then said, "Magic."  
Sylia stared at his calm expression. "You can't be serious."  
"Very serious."  
"That's impossible!" Sylia snapped...but it seemed like he  
actually believed it.   
"So is changing sexes by means of water." Twister grinned.   
"Nothing is impossible, only improbable. Besides, the only time it's   
worked in this universe is with things like my suit. How else did you   
think I got that diamond armour of mine that light on it's own? Magic is   
my female side's specailty. Though I have been having trouble with it   
since I came here."  
"Assuming I believe this," Which, unfortunately, she was beginning   
to in a fascinated sort of way, against all rationality, "what sort   
of...trouble do you mean?"  
"I'll have to show you. Could you bring a glasses of hot and cold  
water for me?"  
Puzzled, yet intrigued, Sylia complied and was soon shaking her  
head in disbelief when she saw the almost instant change of male to female.  
"That alone could convince me." Darlene giggled a bit, the first time   
Sylia had ever seen her do that.   
"Well, this is what I'm having trouble with." And Darlene recited:_

_"Power beyond imagination,  
Spell to help with sight,  
Give me now illumination,  
Shine _forth_ magic light!"_

_The ball of glowing purple light that appeared from nowhere transfixed  
Sylia's attention as she gazed at the impossibility in front of her.   
"This could just be another form of mental power..." she said faintly.  
Irritated, Darlene snapped at Sylia. "Oh, come on! I'm not even   
concentrating on it anymore. Just believe me, it's magic. You wanted the   
truth, you got it." Claming down, she peered at the sphere. "It's also   
the weakest spell I dare that isn't enchantment. And you'll   
see...why..._now_!"  
Suddenly, the ball of light was beginning to spurt magical flames   
erratically and wobbling in mid-air. Quickly, Darlene used the hot water   
Sylia had given her to change. Twister then trust his remaining hand into   
the flaming sphere, ignoring Sylia's startled shout, and the ball of light  
was sucked into his skin, without a mark.  
"I'm immune to direct magic in this form," he explained to a wide-eyed   
Sylia.  
"You could have warned me!" Trying to clam down, she continued,   
"Does that mean you are immune to direct psionics when female?" At his   
nod, she sighed. "All right. Male is psionics and...female is magic. I'll   
believe you, reluctantly, but what caused that...instability?"  
"I wish I knew. I didn't have any trouble before I came to this   
universe."  
Sylia stared at him. "Did it ever _occur_ to you that it might be   
the result of whatever brought you here?"  
"How??"  
"I don't know, you should know better than I. But when you   
arrived you said you had amnesia. Something deeper might have been   
affected as well."   
Twister looked thoughtful. "You could be right. It's something I can  
check later."  
"And _later_ is when I can _hopefully_ get the full story from you,"   
Sylia said meaningfully.   
He seemed a little disterbed, but didn't object. "Ah, right." Changing   
the topic, Twister asked a question he had been worrying about since he   
woke up. "How's Nene? She didn't react...well when she realized what had   
happened to me."  
Now Sylia looked slightly concerned. "Priss and Linna went over to  
her place and found her crying...rather heavily. They managed to help her  
stop, but I'm afraid that they couldn't cheer her up much. Nene _did_ seem  
relatively okay by the time they left. Relatively."  
Twister shook his head and sighed. "Poor Nene..."  
"Twister." When the owner of the name looked up at Sylia, she asked  
him a question that _she_ had been wanting to ask for a while. "Just how   
badly hurt was Nene?"  
Twister stared at an expressionless Sylia before closing tired eyes and  
hesitantly answering the question. "Bad. No... She was _very_ badly wounded  
as you could guess from what you saw before the explosions hid everything."  
He frowned. "I was standing nearby, invisible by means of my armour, because  
I was curious how you guys did one of your operations. Didn't even notice  
the mines until a split-second before they detonated. Wasn't fully prepared  
so I was a little stunned, but in much better shape than Nene.  
I should've got us both out when I caught Nene after the second explosion hid  
us from your view but I was still stunned and Nene was in a _really_ bad way.  
Healing someone else is difficult for me but she needed it _immediately_."  
Twister took a breath. "I devoted my concentration on Healing her and fixing  
her armour to better protect her. The other missiles didn't affect her because  
my power protected her. I, however, didn't have the luxury as you can guess."  
He sighed. "I thought my armour could stand up to it. Wrong, wrong, wrong."  
In silence, Twister contemplated all the possible things he could've  
done better and was racking up an impressive amount until he felt a hand on  
his shoulder. Surprised, he opened his eyes and looked up at a gently smiling  
Sylia.  
"Don't dwell on what you think you _should_ have done. What you did  
saved Nene and you both _survived_. _That's_ what counts." She cocked her  
head. "I don't believe you have much experience in working with a team. Am I  
right?" When Twister nodded her smile became more friendly. "Then I would  
say you did the best you could in order to help save Nene. Although," she   
arched an eyebrow, "_next_ time you should try to come out _intact_. Speaking   
of which..." Sylia looked thoughtfully at where Twister's left arm should   
have been under the cover. "Can your power fix that?" She smiled a   
little ruefully. "Somehow that doesn't sound impossible now. You   
certainly are full of surprises."  
Twister grinned. "Yup. But I did tell Priss that I think I can...but   
it's gonna take a while _and_ take a lot of food." Twister's gaze turned   
pensive. "Have to tell Sylvie and Anri about this so they can look after   
the shop. And...hmmm..." Sylia wondered what Twister was thinking of   
before he spoke again. "You said you wanted to make sure that kind of   
trap wouldn't surprise you again?"  
Sylia frowned. "Yes. That must not happen again. I've taken a few  
small measures already."  
"Mind if Firelord helps you with that?"   
Sylia blinked. "You know him too? I thought only Nene..."  
Twister continued with a grin. "I _am_ a little peeved at Genom right   
now."  
Sylia's expression caused his grin to grow larger. She got control  
of herself again and gave him an arch look.  
"So _you_ are Firelord?? Why am I not surprised? Just how many   
names do you _have_?"  
Twister smirked. "A lot. I think you've got 'em all now."  
"Just what sort of 'help' were you thinking of?"  
The evil grin she got back made her amusedly think that Genom had made  
a big mistake in making this particular person hostile towards them.  
"Let's just say...I have a few ideas."_

_A week later, Twister was carefully gazing at his new left arm, both  
by eye and psionically. After a minute, he sighed with relief as he  
opened and closed the fingers on his fist. He'd devoured enough food to   
choke a horse to do it and withstood some pain during the process but it   
worked.   
"Finito. One brand new left arm ready for duty." He smiled.   
"What's that? Feeding your face?"  
Twister looked at a smirking Priss who was leaning on one of the  
walls of the emergency room where he was still stuck in. Sylia had been  
adamant about his staying in the room until he was done Healing himself.  
Apparently, she wasn't _too_ confident about Twister's ability to regrow  
his missing limbs. Then again, she could be wanting to study his progress  
to see if it could be done without psionics. Only Sylia knew.   
As usual.  
A portable computer system had been brought in so he could connect to  
Wingman. Twister had then given Sylia access to the formidable computer he had  
created and while she wasn't on Nene's level, she certainly was using it well.  
The 'little' ideas they were using to get Genom off-balance occupied some  
of his time as they added a little chaos into the lives of Genom Corp. Wingman  
couldn't be traced (after all, it was more than a mile under the ground and  
had no direct connection anyhow) which made things _so_ much easier for Sylia.  
He was still getting bored.  
"Of course, Priss. That means I can get _out_ of here quicker." Before  
she could make a retort, Twister asked Priss something that had been bugging  
him. "How's Nene? She's the only one who hasn't been here the last week. She  
ok?" He had a worried expression on his face.  
Priss was quiet for a moment before answering. "She looks ok but..."  
She sighed. "There's something in her eyes that tells me she's not. I told her  
you were going to regrow your arm and leg but that didn't help."  
Twister digested this bit of news and sighed as well. "I think, perhaps,  
that the only way to help her is to talk to her directly and say it's not  
her fault. I'd better wait until the leg is done. Bad reminder."  
"Hope that does it. Anyways..." Priss grinned, "I came to work out the  
details on out little 'agreement' for my bike." She definitely was   
enjoying getting back at him. Little did he know Priss didn't think he   
would pay nearly enough maintaining her bike and was waiting for any chance  
to punish her friend a little more.  
Twister rolled his eyes. "Oh, great. Does the 'cycle singer' want   
her bike to go even faster? And maybe shouting out as she rides..."   
Twister started singing out a part of one of Priss' songs. Badly. "Big   
City, kodoku-na Heart to Heart, minna ai no mayoooffph!"  
The abrupt end was the result of Priss' fist hitting Twister's diaphragm  
so that Twister was now gasping for breath.  
"Don't mangle my songs like that!" She glared at the recovering  
Twister. "Can't you sing any better?!"  
"I...wheeze...never learned...gasp...how. Though..." He was clearly  
recovered now but still pretended to be breathless. "I...pant...may have  
just...wheeze again...gotten incentive to do...gasp...so. Ohhhh, the pain."  
"The hamming it up you mean, you idiot."  
Laughter and giggling from the entrance to the room drew Priss and   
Twister's attention to the source of the sound.  
"Sylvie! Anri! You two been okay with the shop?" Twister smiled.  
"We've managed." Sylvie smiled at Priss and Twister. "That _was_ pretty  
bad, Twister." Anri was still giggling beside her.  
Twister sighed. "Critics everywhere." He brightened. "Hey! Something  
new to torture Priss with! First bikes, now singing! Two points!"  
Bad move.  
Priss had been walking towards Sylvie and Anri to give warm greetings  
but froze when she heard that. *Like _hell_ you are!* she thought. Whirling   
around to glare angrily at Twister, she shouted, "Don't you _dare_!"  
He smirked. "Why not? You've got me going to improve your bike like I  
did to mine already. And since I don't know how to sing, it doesn't bother me  
at all. Only those who know how to sing well."  
This is called 'putting out a fire with gasoline'.   
"Listen, you sonofa..." Priss started stalking furiously towards a   
grinning Twister but suddenly stopped with a thoughtful expression on her face.  
Twister's grin disappeared. *Uh oh. What's she planning?*  
Suddenly, Priss' face showed exactly the same sort of expression she  
had on just before telling Twister that he owed her for all those parking  
tickets. "You said 'those who know how to sing well'? Well, guess what? I've  
been having a slow month and since you won't be able to work on my bike until  
you're out of here...you're gonna get a few _singing lessons_. And I'm going  
to make sure you know how to sing _decently_ at _least_ by the time your leg  
is done! Remember, you _owe_ me, and don't you think for a minute that  
I'm gonna forget it!"  
All the while Priss talked, Twister sank deeper and deeper into his   
bed's pillow. When Priss defiantly finished speaking, he quietly groaned as  
Sylvie and Anri looked on with vast amusement.  
*Why do I do this to myself?* Twister sighed mentally. *Oh, well.  
At least I won't be bored.* Looking again at Priss' now-smug face, he added  
to that thought.  
*Anything _but_ bored.*_

_Chapter Thirteen  
\----------------_

_The door to an apartment opened, let the owner of the place in, and  
then closed the home from the outside world once more. Said owner slowly   
took her shoes off before going over and sitting down on a chair, facing   
the computer system in the corner.  
And just stared at the screen.  
Nene sighed and stood up again. She couldn't go on the Net. Not today.  
She just couldn't stop thinking about that day when they had fallen for that  
trap and she had been knocked unconscious. Finding out later that Darlene had  
risked her life to save Nene's and had lost an arm and a leg while doing so  
had horrified then deeply depressed her.  
*If only I had been more _careful_!*  
Fortunately, Nene _did_ know that she had done all that she could.  
Her suit's systems just hadn't been _quite_ as good as they needed to be to   
discover the hidden Boomers. She _knew_ that.  
*But it doesn't help,* Nene sighed mentally as she sat down at her   
table and stared down at it with tears staring to form in her eyes as they   
had often been doing for the past two weeks.  
DING!  
She looked up at the sound. *Doorbell. Must be Linna. Trying to   
cheer me up again.* Nene tried to wipe the tears from her eyes as she   
went to open the door. She didn't have much luck by the time she started   
to open the door.  
"Hi Lin..." The dull greeting died in her mouth as it dropped   
open in surprise and Nene's eyes widened.  
"I may not be a Linna but will a Darlene do?" said the   
grinning red-head, chuckling at Nene's reaction.  
Darlene's amusement turned to concern as Nene just stood there, looking  
from her face, her left arm, her recently Healed left leg, and back to her   
face again.  
"Nene? Hey, are you alright?" Darlene softly said.  
Startled, Nene stopped her examination and looked Darlene in the face  
with a more normal-looking expression of guilt but still didn't say anything.  
"Can I come in?" Darlene prompted.  
Nene quickly nodded, still unable to speak, and Darlene   
walked into the apartment. She had just taken off her shoes when Nene   
closed the door and ran up to Darlene to hug her tightly, crying, "I'm   
sorry!"  
Startled, Darlene hesitantly hugged Nene back as Nene sobbed on her  
shoulder. *Priss was right. She isn't doing to hot, is she?* she   
thought with some concern. When Nene calmed down after a while, Darlene   
said, "Didn't Priss and Linna tell you that I thought I would be alright?"  
"Yes," Nene sniffled, "but..."  
"...kinda hard to believe. I guess that's true." Darlene stared over  
Nene's shoulder for a second. "For me as well." She sighed and shook her   
head. "Still weird for me too, at times." She refocused on Nene's face and   
smiled. "Got some cake? I've been busy with this leg all week. I've got a   
case of the munchies and 'nothin else will do'."  
Trying to smile, Nene walked over to the fridge and produced a half  
of a cake.  
Darlene smirked when she saw the cake. "Natch."  
Nene didn't have to try to smile after that predictable, for Darlene,   
comment.  
After they had both eaten a piece of cake, Darlene, with no   
little malicious satisfaction, told Nene about the 'little' setbacks she   
and Sylia had conjured up on the computer to pay back Genom and keep them   
occupied until they found a better solution. As Darlene had hoped, Nene  
came out of that strange depression halfway through the descriptions of the  
pitfalls created for Genom and started interjecting her own comments.  
*Well, she DOES know the Net better than me or Sylia. Heh. The Net is   
_Nene's_ kingdom.* As she listened to Nene's comments, Darlene inwardly   
smiled that the distraction seemed to be working. *She looks 200%   
better now.*  
"...and the data transferal from that node will lose Genom's  
pet hackers tracking your trail," Nene concluded. She paused for a second as   
she realized her state of dress. Nene had been working hard at work this   
particular day to forget her troubles and since it was a Friday there had   
been lots of things to finish up. The result of this was that her uniform   
was wrinkled, her deodorant starting to fail, and hair in a slight disarray.  
She was distressed as she looked at herself. "Oh no! I forgot! I'm a   
mess!"  
"As long as you look happier than before, I don't mind." Darlene   
smiled happily as Nene checked her uniform's status.  
That was the wrong thing to say. Nene slowed her inspection slightly  
before standing up. Sadly, Nene said, "I guess so."  
*Oh no, I've gone and reminded her again. Shoot!* Thinking quickly   
before Nene left to go clean herself up, Darlene hurriedly said,   
"Say, Nene... How about you just do me a _favor_. Later. Though not as   
dramatic or stupid as sacrificing an arm and a leg. Nothing big. Just so   
you feel better. Is that okay?"  
Nene listened to this and looked strangely thoughtful for a second  
before nodding slowly. "Okay." As she walked towards the bathroom, she said,  
"Thank you, Twister."  
"No problem." It wasn't until Nene closed the bathroom door that   
she realized that Nene hadn't called her 'Darlene'. That struck her   
as unusual for some reason. *That's odd. She should be more used to that   
name for this form.*   
*I wonder why she used the name she knows for my male form...*_

_Darlene was sneaking another piece of cake with the self-rationalization  
that it would help Nene with her sweet tooth and was quietly singing and humming  
between bites as she ate. Her friend was taking her time.  
*Sigh,* Darlene half-mocking thought to herself as she munched on   
the piece of cake, *Curse you, Priss. You actually managed to get a   
decent voice outta me and now I _know_ how bad I was before. Oh, well.   
At least no one's going to wince at me anymore. I just wish she hasn't   
looked so damned amused after seeing me wince at a recording she had made   
of my singing before we started.*  
"That's really nice, Twister. I didn't know you sang," Nene's   
quiet voice commented behind Darlene from the region of the bathroom door.  
*'Twister' again?* Darlene wondered as she started swinging her head  
to face Nene. "I threatened Priss with bad singing which wasn't...too...  
smart...um...ah...what's that for, Nene?" she nervously got out.  
Wrapped up in towels, one for hair and one for body, Nene nervously  
stood a few feet away from Darlene. Her eyes were looking alternately at  
the floor and at the object she held in slightly trembling hands.  
A steaming glass of water.  
"Twister...do you want to..." Nene's voice trailed off as Darlene  
stood up and approached her with some hesitation. When Darlene stopped, she  
slowly raised her hands and before Nene could say anything, placed those  
hands overtop Nene's shaking ones, keeping the glass between them. Miracle   
of miracles that Darlene was able to keep her own steady considering the   
panic she was feeling herself.  
Darlene quickly started talking in a rush. "Nene...you're my   
_friend_ you don't need to..."  
"But I can't think of anything else!!" Nene cried, tears forming in her  
eyes and staring to fall down her cheeks.   
"I'm alright, Nene. Really." Quickly, Darlene guided Nene closer   
to the table and managed to place the glass of hot water upon it by   
taking both sets of hands away from the container. "You don't need to do   
this. It's not...eek!" she squeaked in panic at what Nene did next.  
Freed of holding the glass, Nene had suddenly rushed forwards and   
hugged Darlene desperately and tightly as she cried. Surprised   
again by Nene's reactions, Darlene could only let her friend sob into her   
shoulder as her mind whirled in confusion.  
"It's...just...too...much!" was Nene's muffled, but anguished, plea.  
"Please!!"  
*This isn't right,* Darlene thought frantically. *She's my _friend_  
for crying out loud! But how can I get rid of this grief of hers? What   
can I do? What should I do?" Suddenly, her mind flashed a rushed solution.   
*Maybe...*   
"How about a date?" she blurted out, then cursed to herself as   
soon as she said it.   
Not comprehending at first, Nene kept sobbing until the meaning of  
what Darlene had said reached her. She stopped and lifted her head to look,   
with some surprise, at the person she was holding on to.  
"A...date?"   
"Um...ah...yeah." Darlene dredged up a smile. "Just to give you time   
to...er...think it over. Let's both go out tonight and try to have a good   
time. I know you haven't had much of _that_ lately." Actually, Darlene   
was beginning to think this might work after all.  
Nene sniffled and considered this. "And you'll be a guy?"  
"Of course. I'd be a funny date if I wasn't." Darlene rolled her   
eyes. "And it'll be my first time being male in the city without wearing my   
armour. That _does_ draw some notice," she said wryly.  
Releasing Darlene from the hug, Nene giggled as she wiped the tears  
form her eyes. "Ok. We'll go on a date."  
"And, uh, you can pick where to go." Darlene looked slightly   
embarrassed. "I've been in this city for almost a year and I'm still not   
familiar with it in the entertainment value-wise sense. Haven't gone out   
much, I guess. The only places I know is where you guys have taken me."  
"Oh, I know some great places and Naoko has mentioned a few spots  
to me that I didn't want to go to without a...um...date." Nene blushed,   
then brightened as she thought about it. "Now I can!" They both giggled   
at that.  
"Heh. Well, if we're gonna do it then I guess we'd better get   
ready." Darlene picked up the still warm glass of water. "If I stay like   
this there's going to be some strange things being said about you if   
you're seen by anybody you know."  
Nene giggled as she nodded her agreement, then started looking for   
something to wear, her depression set aside by excitement. As she looked,   
something bothered her for some reason. Not the date, which she was   
looking forward to, but something else she couldn't figure out. Then she   
shrugged.  
It couldn't _that_ important._

_"I can't believe that guy was cheating," Twister grumbled.  
"How did you know?" Nene's voice inquired curiously.  
The two were walking out of an old-style amusement park that Nene   
sometimes went to with friends from ADPolice. Nene had picked it as the  
first place to go and they had enjoyed the rides and games that the park   
offered. He had mock begged Nene to go on the roller-coaster ride called   
the 'Tornado', which had caused her to dissolve into hilarious laughter once   
she got the joke. But there had been one game that almost became the   
exception to their enjoyment.  
"It's hard to fool a telekinetic who's suspicious of something. Those  
targets were easy to hit with the air gun, but just when I was about to win  
they suddenly weren't flipping anymore. The second time I checked to see if  
I was hitting them...and I _was_! The guy must've triggered something that  
made the ducks harder to knock down. Once I realized that, I 'helped' my own  
air gun shoot quite a bit faster." Twister smirked when he turned and looked  
at Nene. She was quite happy since her arms were full of large, fluffy, and   
cute dolls.  
"The guy sure looked funny after I started winning and kept at it.   
Want some help with those?"  
"I'm okay. Mmmmm..." Nene happily hugged the dolls. Then she sighed.   
"But we have to go back to my house and drop these off before we go   
anywhere else." She pouted at the anticipated waste of time.  
"Ah, but, madam. You have Twister's Delivery Service at your disposal."  
Twister smiled as he quickly plucked a white plush kitten from the bunch in  
Nene's arms and with a mystical gesture made it vanish. "One feline hath been  
delivered to thy domicile, fair lady."  
"Oh, right! I forgot." Nene started handing dolls over to Twister  
with some sorrow but was cheered by the fact that she'd have lots of time  
to be with them later.  
When he finished, Twister bowed grandly to Nene and both were surprised  
when the crowd that had formed around them started clapping.  
"Uh, oh," Twister said in a low voice. *Didn't think. That was   
stupid but I was more concerned with making Nene happy.*  
"Oops. They must think we're performers for the park. What should we  
do?" Nene nervously glanced around at the clapping audience.  
"Not much choice, it's time to improvise!" Raising his voice, he   
addressed the waiting crowd. "Thank you all for your applause! And for our  
second magical surprise, I and my lovely assistant," Nene blushed at the  
appreciative whistles from the crowd, "will deceive your eyes  
and leave you with more fuel for your imagination." Twister gestured for Nene  
to stand close to him as he started to chant, spreading his arms wide.  
"Trantol fortran kantal pascal...." Nene repressed her smile   
when she heard some of the words he chose.  
With sweeping motions of his arms, Twister focused the crowd's attention  
to the ground. Mist was forming from no visible source and was beginning to  
rise and swirl around the pair. Higher and higher it rose until all there  
was was Twister's voice chanting from a pillar of fog.   
Suddenly, the voice stopped and the fog halted swirling for a moment  
and began to drop back to the ground.   
Then it pulsed.  
And began to shrink into a familiar form.  
After a few seconds, the crowd looked on with amazement at the giant  
boomer made out of fog that slowly and silently walked towards one side  
of the audience. Before anyone panicked, the boomer stopped and exploded with  
a faint mushroom-like poof into mist that rapidly vanished.  
The two that had produced such an illusion were nowhere to be seen.  
After a moment's confirmation that the two hadn't left through the  
crowd, the people who had seen the display clapped their hearty approval   
for a long time, suspecting that the two were nearby but hiding to   
improve the effect._

_"Whew. That was close." Twister relaxed as he peered around the corner.  
He had silently teleported them both away to a hiding place he had   
quickly spotted when they had been concealed in fog and had used his   
'unnotice me' trick to avoid them being noticed.  
Nene was impressed at the control he had used to shape the fog.   
"That was neat! But why did you make it do that?" she asked him curiously.  
Twister turned to smirk at Nene. "They expected a surprise and I gave  
them one. Still," he shuddered, "I hate being the center of attention for a   
crowd. Brrr..."  
"You didn't act like it," she pointed out.  
"Didn't have much choice. Anyway," Twister gallantly held out an arm   
for Nene, "I'm supposed to be giving _you_ a good time. Shall we go   
before we're noticed?"  
"Sure!" Nene quickly wrapped her arm around Twister's and they   
retreated from the area._

_When they finally returned to Nene's apartment, it was late and both  
were tired from all they had done. Nene hadn't done anything for two   
weeks so she had had quite a bit of stored energy once her mood had   
improved. Twister had kept up with her the whole time and was surprised   
at how tired he himself was.  
"Ahhh... Back home!" Nene got a sudden burst of energy and ran to  
check on her new stuffed pets. "Yay!" she cried as she found them on her bed  
and tried to hug them all at once, then one at a time.  
"Glad to see you back to your old self again," a female voice   
commented wryly, but with an undercurrent of relief.  
Nene looked up and saw that Twister must've used some cold water  
to change forms again because Darlene was standing nearby and smiling at her  
friend.  
"Why did you...?"  
"I had a feeling I didn't need to stay male and you're more used to  
me being like this. Am I right?"  
Nene didn't say anything for a moment as she checked her emotions  
to see if that heaviness that had been a dark cloud over her heart for the  
past two weeks was still there. While there seemed to be a shadow of it  
remaining, it seemed less and less every second. Nene sighed happily at the  
gladness she felt.  
"Yes."  
"Thank God," Darlene said with such feeling that Nene irritably   
threw a pillow into her face. "Mmph!" came the muffled cry of surprise.  
"Darlene! That's not nice!" said Nene as she was slightly miffed at  
her friend's too heartfelt reaction. Her eyes widened in surprise when   
Darlene, with a imp-like gleam in her eye and pillow in hand, leaped  
to the attack and with a muffled sound hit Nene on the side.   
Frantically scrambling for a weapon, she quickly grabbed the other   
plump pillow and the war was on. The two were soon laughing too hard to   
continue the pillow fight and collapsed on the bed, snickering.  
After they had calmed down, Nene smiled gratefully at Darlene.  
"Thanks for cheering me up, Darlene. I had been feeling so...so   
depressed ever since..." she trailed off, not wanting to mention the   
incident.  
"Hey, we're friends. That's what friends do." Darlene sighed,   
holding the pillow close to herself. "Besides, I haven't had that much fun  
for a long while myself. Tiring, but fun." She closed her eyes to   
remembering, what all they had done that night. One amusing thought came   
to mind as she did this, even as she felt her eyes starting to droop.  
"You know..." she sleepily said.  
"Hmmmm...? What?" was Nene's tired response from where she lay   
on the bed.  
"I just thought about something."  
"What's that?"  
"Would rule number ten of the Knight Saber code have applied here or   
not if we had done it?" The last part of the sentence was barely audible.  
Nene wondered what Darlene was talking about until she remembered the  
list of rules that Sylia had given her, Priss, and Linna. Not that they had  
obeyed some of them. She thought about the wording of that rule and  
her friend's strange form-changing abilities and had to giggle.  
"That's funny, Darlene. I'm not sure. What do you think?" When she got  
no response, Nene looked at her. "Darlene? Are you... oh." The slow and even  
breathing told her that her friend had fallen asleep at last.  
*Hmmm... I guess...I...will...too...* was Nene's last thought before  
she followed in Darlene's footsteps and closed her eyes._

_Early Saturday morning was bright and sunny and Linna was fully enjoying  
this as she jogged her usual route. She was almost home and was planning what  
she would do that day.  
*Let's see... Going to pick up Priss at 11 and go shopping, then stop   
over at Sylia's for a swim in the pool. What else?* She had jogged back to her   
apartment building and paused before opening her door. *Nene.* Her friend  
hadn't been included in her plans because Nene had not wanted to do anything  
for quite some time.   
Linna frowned.  
*Two weeks is long enough.* She decided. *I'll clean up and head to  
her place right away and get her to _go_ somewhere. Maybe me, Priss, and   
Darlene can cheer her up. At least, now that Darlene's leg should be done by   
now.* The thought of her friend's newly revealed abilities still caused her  
some wonder but she had decided she was adaptable enough to accept it,   
barely. She liked Darlene though, and that made all the difference.  
Thinking over the plan briefly, Linna nodded to herself and smiled.  
*We should be able to cheer her up.*_

_Later, Linna knocked on Nene's door and hoped that she was up.  
*She should be....*  
The door opened and Linna was very surprised to see Twister as the  
one who was standing behind it. She hadn't seen too much of Darlene's male   
side as he had almost always been under a cover but even dressed as he was  
now Linna could see he was pretty handsome looking. He looked surprised and   
a little embarrassed.  
"Linna! Uh...hi! Come on in! Nene's in the shower and I'm making  
breakfast for a treat." He had changed back into a guy so he could use his  
TK for some practice as well as giving Nene a bit of a show. Seeing food   
prepare itself, with him making exaggerated music conductor motions, had   
almost made Nene collapse in laughter.   
"What are you doing here this early?" Linna said as she walked in and  
smelled the delicious aroma of breakfast. She had had a light breakfast to  
get here quickly and this smell prompted her to eye the kitchen.  
"Um....well..."  
His hesitant answer was cut off as a toweled Nene came out of the  
bathroom with a smile and saw Linna which made her smile even bigger from   
the unexpected and happy surprise.  
"Linna!" She looked very cheerful. "I'm sorry that I haven't been   
much fun lately. Gimme a second and I'll be right out and we can have   
breakfast and then go out and do something!" Before either Linna or   
Twister could reply, Nene grabbed some clothes she had laid out before   
taking her shower and went back into the bathroom to dress.  
Linna was faintly stunned at this turn of event and her face   
reflected it.  
Twister blinked and speculatively looked at the bathroom door.  
"Well, she's definitely cured of that depression."  
Turning her head at his voice, Linna stared at him, then at the door  
Nene had gone through, and then back to Twister again. Something was   
slowly forming in her mind and she voiced it out loud.  
"Did you two...?" His raised eyebrow made her blush in   
embarrassment.  
"Tsk, tsk, Linna. What a naughty mind. No, we didn't. We just had a   
friendly date to try to cheer Nene up and it worked. Whoops! Gotta check on   
breakfast!" Twister ran away from Linna to save the food and she followed   
him inside.   
That Nene had asked was better left unsaid, he figured.  
As Twister continued making breakfast, Linna recalled how down Nene   
had been for the past few weeks and compared that to the cheerful face   
she had just seen. One thought entered her mind, stunned as it was at Nene's   
enormous change.  
*Must have been some date.*_

_After Nene came out, the three ate breakfast. Nene was the one  
doing most of the talking with Linna, catching up on most of the week's events.  
*Trying to make up for two weeks of gloom it sounds like.* Darlene  
thought amusedly to herself. She had used some water to change into female  
again as Twister had felt that Linna would probably feel more comfortable with  
the more familiar form. The guess was a good one and Linna, now that one of   
her best friends wasn't so depressed anymore, was smiling and laughing almost   
as much as Nene.  
When they finished, they all left in Linna's van and picked up Priss,  
who still looked faintly sleepy, eleven a.m. was early for her. The cheerful   
greeting she got from Nene woke her up in a hurry as she stared at the   
unexpected, smiling face of her former doom-'n-gloom friend. Surprise   
turned to pleasure as she got on the van, happy to see Nene back to   
normal. As they drove, however, Priss was getting rather annoyed since no   
one would tell her the reason for Nene's abrupt mood change.  
Nene just smiled happily.  
Linna just grinned and looked ready to laugh out loud.  
Darlene just smiled and was trying hard to look innocent.  
Priss just ground her teeth in frustration.   
She hated not knowing what was going on._

_The shopping mall provided Priss with some means of satisfaction when  
Darlene attempted to avoid trying on or buying any female clothing.  
"Hey, Darlene! Now why aren't you looking for anything for yourself?"  
Priss grinned as she said that since everybody, with the exception of Darlene,   
the group were looking at various things displayed in front of   
female clothing stores.  
"You know very well _why_, Priss." This was quietly muttered out the  
side of Darlene's mouth as she embarrassed enough as it was.  
"But what about when..." Nene started to say.  
"...I first came? I didn't want to look suspicious then, that's all.  
I think I have enough right now." Darlene looked uncomfortable. "Not that I  
ever wore some of it." Nene hid a grin behind her hand as she remembered   
some of the articles she had persuaded her friend to buy at Sylia's shop.  
Darlene glared at her suspiciously and she tried to keep her face straight   
but her lips twitched uncontrollably.  
Linna saw what Priss was up to and decided to get into the fun herself  
as well. "That was _months_ ago! You need to keep up with the fashions!"   
Priss looked at her with a grin and they nodded imperceptively in agreement.   
"Uh..." Darlene felt like she was losing ground somehow.  
"'Sides, we're all going to Sylia's for a dip in the pool and somehow  
I don't think you have anything for that." Priss grinned as she and Linna  
each firmly gripped one of Darlene's shoulders and started herding the   
reluctant shopper towards a store entrance.  
Panic rushed up and Darlene dug in her heels, being as strong as   
she was this stopped her forward momentum, almost tipping over from the   
force of the surprised Priss and Linna's hands on her shoulders.   
"H-hey! I don't really need to go in. Do I?" That last was added desperately.  
"What's the problem? You've obviously shopped with Nene before."  
"Yeah, but mostly clothes that would look good on either sex,"   
Darlene retorted. "The rest I've never worn. And _that_ store," she waved   
at the entrance that she had almost been dragged into, "looks like it   
doesn't carry any of the former."  
Priss carefully studied the store's displays. "You know, I think   
you're right. Even better," she declared with an evil grin directed at the   
horror filled red-head she held firmly. "All the things a cute girl   
really needs. Don't you think Darlene fits into that category, Linna?"  
"Oh, _definitely_, Priss."  
Cutting off Darlene's denial, Priss bent down to look eye-to-eye   
with her companion. "And she _does_ remember that she owes me, doesn't she?"  
Darlene stared at the singer with a rapidly sinking feeling. "How long   
are you going to hold that over my head?" she asked with a sick curiosity.  
"Until I think you've suffered enough," was Priss' calm reply, a   
wicked gleam in her eye.   
Darlene slumped her head in defeat. "Oh, all right," she   
muttered, "I'll go peacefully."  
"Hey, it's not like you don't have the equipment," Priss quipped,  
and smirked at the glare Darlene gave her. "Want to help, Nene?"  
Nene, with great dignity, said, "Only if I get to help with the   
swimsuit." Then she smiled broadly and innocently at Darlene.  
"Traitor," the prisoner growled.  
Nene stuck her tongue out impishly before they all went into the store,  
everybody laughing save one resigned red-head._

_Sylia was pleasantly surprised to see that Nene had come and was  
looking cheerful again when the four arrived for the swim. Also, from Linna   
and Priss' mirthful expressions, she suspected that they had something to do   
with Darlene's holding two bags worth of recently bought clothing. Especially   
when she had that martyred look on her face.  
"Nene! It's good to see you looking better."  
Nene looked down slightly. "I'm sorry if I worried everyone, Sylia."  
"I _was_ a little concerned, but I can see you're okay now." She smiled  
at Nene who had looked back up. "Shall we go swimming now and forget about  
it?"  
"Okay!" Nene smiled and then giggled as she remembered something.  
"Wait till you see what I helped Darlene get!"  
"Hmm?" Sylia blinked at this somewhat startling news and looked   
inquiringly at the others.   
"Oh, we decided that Darlene needed a new wardrobe seeing as she was  
trying to avoid shopping today," Linna said offhandedly while Priss   
smirked. "She needed a swimsuit anyway."  
With an arched eyebrow and amused face, Sylia turned to Darlene.  
"Really?"  
Darlene sighed wearily. "I _did_ need one."  
"Don't forget that _lovely_ dress..." Priss said, earning her a   
black look from Darlene. Sylia wisely refrained from commenting after   
seeing the reaction.  
"I think the swimsuit looks great!" said Nene happily as they all   
entered the building.  
"Hmph." Darlene tried to cheer herself up a little. "At least it   
wasn't a bikini."  
"What's wrong with a two piece?" Linna inquired.  
"For you, nothing. For me...I don't think so."  
"Yeah, it's just not you."  
"That's _not_ what I meant, Priss."  
"Heh. I know."  
"Priss...argh." Darlene gave up. "Anyway, I can live with green and   
purple. I like purple."  
"I didn't see why the first one I picked wasn't a good choice, Darlene."  
"Nene, light _pink_ isn't one of my..."  
"Say, Darlene," said Priss curiously, interrupting her.  
"What?" she braced for another comment.  
"I thought you were shy about this."  
Darlene blinked.  
Sylia had already been changed so she had not followed the four into  
the room normally used to change into swimsuits. Darlene had been distracted  
by the conversation and thinking about the very embarrassing incident at the   
clothing store, the source of all the new clothes she now owned. The   
other three were used to changing into their swimsuits here so their   
movements had all been natural; Darlene had unthinkingly followed suit.   
All present in the room didn't have much on at the moment.  
"_ACK_!!!" Darlene shouted and an eyeblink later her hands were over  
her eyes, which didn't hide the beet-red blush on her face. "Sorry!!"  
Priss rolled her eyes as Nene and Linna were sorting out their own  
feelings on the matter. "Somehow, I don't feel very threatened by this. Given  
your reaction, that is. The fact that you're a girl now helps as well."  
"I don't care," Darlene forcefully stated.  
"Well...even if you were a guy at first, you've been a girl most of  
the time while you've been here and we _are_ all friends. It's not like   
you don't fit in with _that_ figure." Like Priss, Linna appeared to have   
decided that it wasn't a problem.  
"Right! Come on, Darlene. It's not that bad," Nene chimed in.  
"No. The store was my limit." Darlene was trying to walk backwards  
towards the door while still covering her eyes.  
Linna sighed. "You'd think she'd jump at the chance." She motioned to  
Nene who nodded with a grin. "If you don't, we'll pry those hands off  
your eyes, even if we all have to wrestle you to the floor."  
Darlene froze at the implications of that. "You wouldn't."  
"One..."  
"Okay! Okay! I surrender!" Reluctantly, Darlene lowered her arms.   
Trying not to look at the semi-clothed others.  
Nene stepped up in front of Darlene, a small frown of   
exasperation on her lips. "It's okay, Darlene, don't look so resigned!"   
She blinked and looked down. "Say...do you _never_ wear a bra?"   
Priss and Linna hadn't thought someone could blush that red.  
"Should've left on one of the ones we made you use while trying on all those   
dresses," Priss commented.  
"Oh, shut up," Darlene said as she grit her teeth together._

_"HUP!" SPLASH!  
"AGH!" "HEY!" "EEK!"  
Breaking the surface of the water, Darlene shook her head to get   
the water off her face and grinned at the soaked, surprised, and   
beginning to steam Priss, Linna, and Nene who hadn't even gotten  
in and weren't accustomed to the pool's temperature yet. She had directed the  
splash of her entry just right to get all three. The design on her swimsuit   
was all green leaves with purple flowers blooming between and above the   
foliage, the waters of the pool lapped at the suit.  
Revenge was sweet. "Payback!" Darlene crowed, laughing.  
"WHY YOU...!" Priss dived in immediately, prompting Darlene to quickly  
backstroke away as the singer resurfaced and made like Jaws towards her.  
Evading Priss all the way, Darlene made a complete circuit of the pool  
before standing up in the shallow end.  
"Hey, I was just getting even for making me buy all those clothes!"  
Having reached the shallow end and standing up as well, Priss slowly   
advanced, not too angry anymore but with an evil grin on her face. "You   
forgot one thing, Darlene...teamwork!"  
"Huh?"  
"GET HER!!" chorused a trio of voices.  
Too late, the memory that Darlene had gotten all _three_ friends came  
back and was washed away as three pairs of hands grabbed and dunked her. Nene  
and Linna had entered the pool as Priss chased her quarry and had quietly   
waited for the two to come back.  
"Gaaaa..blub!"  
Sylia watched their antics with a smile, pleased that they were having  
a good time. It certainly seemed like everyone had finally recovered from  
that last fiasco of a mission. The team hadn't been on any jobs as a result  
and while they had been piling up, she had felt that the time had not come  
yet. She wanted the others to initiate the restart of operations because if  
Sylia did then they might feel like things were being rushed.  
She smiled again as she watched the four splashing each other.  
*I don't think I'll have to wait long.*_

_Mackie was sitting beside his sister and was staring in envy at  
Darlene as she splashed the others in the pool.  
*She changed with Priss, Linna, and Nene. Together.*   
He sighed at all the potential opportunities to spy on girls such   
form-changing abilities would present to him, even though Mackie had no  
desire to actually _be_ a girl. Still...all those _chances_.  
*How lucky can you get?*_

_Chapter Fourteen  
\----------------_

_Business was steady in the Flights of Fantasy store and Darlene was,  
surprisingly, pleased as she surveyed her domain.   
*I opened this store just so I could get enough money to support me  
and then only until I could return.* She looked around at the customers   
scattered around the store. *But it's amazing how attached you can get to  
something if it succeeds.*  
It was now several weeks since Darlene had fully recovered from  
the injuries she had suffered in that little trap of Genom's for the Knight  
Sabers. Nene seemed fully recovered and had gone with the Sabers on several  
missions with only a slight bit of hesitation, which was fading fast.  
"Excuse me?"  
"Hm?" Darlene blinked, her mind had been wandering and hadn't noticed  
anybody coming up to her. She looked up at a customer and almost blinked  
again. That the customer was a lady, anyone could tell. She had an air of  
command about her as she smiled, slightly mocking, at the recovering Darlene.   
With long, purpleish hair, almost too-pale skin, and surprisingly blue(not sure)   
eyes, she seemed to be a living model for the Elegant Woman and was   
dressed like it.  
Trying to collect her wits, Darlene quickly smiled at the woman in  
front of her. "I'm sorry! My mind was some distance away."  
"I could see that." The smile reflected amusement now.  
"What can I do for you?" Something was bothering Darlene in the back  
of her mind. *Where have I met this person before? She seems familiar.*  
"I am thinking of buying..." The lady turned around and glanced at  
what occupied the center of the store. "...that."  
"Char?!?" Darlene looked incredulous. "Most people want to stay _away_  
from him at first glance!" The urge to smirk was strong. "Or is it for 'the   
man you love?' To _hate_, that is."  
The purple-haired woman had to laugh briefly at that, "No. My employer  
likes to collect...unusual things from time to time and that rather impressive  
piece of work would please him very much."  
Noticing two very large gentlemen busily looking at objects in the store  
Darlene quickly checked with her mystic senses and had a guess confirmed.  
"You always bring Boomers along to carry your shopping?"  
That caught the lady by surprise. "How...?" She narrowed her eyes.  
"I see you are observant."  
"So-so," Darlene sighed. "In any case, Char's not for sale. He was a  
gift for the store's opening."  
"_Genom_," the woman hinted pointedly, "would be more than   
willing to offer you a more than sufficient amount to compensate you."  
Darlene stiffened involuntarily as she realized who she was talking  
business with. Matagan! Darlene, as Twister, hadn't gotten a really good   
look at her face during the Largo incident, but she recognized the Genom  
executive now. And she also knew Matagan was, from a few hacks into the   
Genom database, the project leader of the trap that had been planned for the   
Knight Sabers. The trap that had literally cost her an arm and a leg. It   
was a good thing this was Anri's day off, Matagan would have recognized   
the sexaroid instantly.  
"I don't think so," Darlene frostily replied. "The person who   
gave me Char seems to be against Genom for some reason and I don't want   
to chance offending him."  
Matagan was slightly puzzled by the store owner's sudden coldness  
after mentioning Genom but she was still not willing to give up so easily.  
"Perhaps if I could talk to this person...?"  
Now it was time for Darlene to do some major on-the-spot acting to  
divert attention away from herself.  
She snorted. "_I_ barely talk to him myself. Actually, not at all  
since he vanished for a few weeks about a month ago. I tried looking for him  
in some...strange places but couldn't find him until he re-appeared, muttering  
only something about 'costing an arm and a leg,' whatever that meant."  
Darlene tried to look puzzled as she went on. "I wish I knew how he delivers   
his stuff inside the store too. He has a nice blue bike but that couldn't   
manage all of his stuff."  
The mention of the arm-and-leg phrase caused Matagan to stiffen   
and she intently looked at Darlene as the latter finished talking. "Have   
you seen his face at all?"  
"No," Darlene snorted with mock amusement. "He's into this   
'mysterious person' bit. Always keeps his face covered somehow. He's a   
nice guy though. Did you want to get one of his smaller dragons? Easier   
to carry."  
Matagan slowly looked at the selection and picked a Western one at   
random. "I'll take this one." As Darlene rang up the sale, Matagan thought  
furiously to herself. *It _must_ be whoever the Crystal Knight is! I've been  
looking for anything unusual that might lead to him and I think I've finally  
found a lead! The rumors about these dragons drew me here as soon as I heard   
about them. These hunches I've been having are getting stronger and I   
came myself so I wouldn't need to tell anyone about these strange   
feelings.* She contemplated the dragon she had just bought was she left   
the store with her two guardian Boomers. *As for this, it looks _too_   
well done. I think we should analyze this to see why...*  
"Come again!" Darlene cheerfully said as she was thinking something  
else. *I know _I'll_ be coming to _your_ place soon, and I have just the thing  
to do it too. Mysterious Person, coming up!*_

_Much later that day, Matagan was standing in front of Quincy's desk  
as he minutely scanned the dragon she had purchased in the morning.  
"Perfect," the director commented as he examined every detail.   
"Tell me what the results were," he said this without looking at his   
employee.  
"Perfect is correct in many ways for this statue." Matagan looked at  
a sheet as she went on. "There is no possible way that this was done by hand.  
By either human or Boomer. You would need precision mechanics for the   
incredible detail incorporated into this statue...for a lengthy amount of   
time."  
"And you say these are bought daily."  
"Yes, sir." She flipped a page. "Also, small samples were taken and  
it was found that some had a purity of almost 99.99% for the metal sampled.  
Again, something that would take a long time to create and useful for far  
better purposes."  
"I'm hurt. I thought it was a great way to use it."  
Matagan whipped around at the totally unexpected voice and Quincy  
slowly brought his eyes up to narrow his eyes at the unexpected guest.  
Standing in ankle-deep fog, was a cloaked figure. The cloak was  
impenetrably black with softly glowing blue trim. The hood of the cloak was   
over the head of the person, shrouding it in shadow. The light of the   
office failed to be able to penetrate the darkness for some reason. When   
the figure started walking towards the two Genom execs, a pair of similar   
black with blue trim boots were shown to be worn on the stranger's feet   
as the fog followed like a puppy behind him. Again, the figure spoke in a   
modulated reply.   
"I'm glad you like it though..."  
"How did you get in here!?!" Matagan shouted.  
"Elevator, of course. Those stairs are murder." The figure chuckled.  
*Actually, I used teleportation but I'm not telling _them_ that.*  
Matagan went pale. "A stealth device," she whispered as a   
suspicion of who this stranger was grew in her mind.  
Quincy, as usual, was calm. "So then. You are the Crystal Knight, I  
presume."  
The hood of the cloak was facing Matagan as the Crystal Knight nodded.  
"Quite right. I guess I shouldn't be surprised you know about my little  
invisibility trick." The hood shifted as the Knight cocked his head at   
Matagan. "Hm. I should be very mad at you, Miss Matagan. Your little trap   
caused me a _lot_ of pain..." A brief flash of glowing blue orbs chilled   
Matagan, making her wonder if he was human, before the Knight went   
on, "...but the look on your face right now more than makes up for it."   
He chuckled. "Priceless!"  
An angry flush replaced the coldness in Matagan as she realized that  
the Knight wasn't seeking revenge and had been enjoying the fact that she  
didn't know that.   
"Why you..."  
"And after I saved _your_ life too. Ah, well." Twister mock-sighed.  
"_What?!?_ What are you talking about?!"   
"Largo. Scar. Leg. That help?" Matagan went white. "Yup, I guess that  
did it." Seeing as Matagan was unable to carry on the conversation, shock  
will do that, he turned to Quincy.  
Quincy calmly regarded the person in front of him as he held the  
dragon statue in one hand. "Your equipment seems quite remarkable. Indeed,  
most of it looks to be beyond current technologies or, at least, very different  
from normal methods. With your help, Genom would leap far ahead of all others."  
Twister gave a distorted snort. "Do you always offer intruders in your  
office employment? First Largo, now me?"  
"Yes...how did you know of that?" Quincy clasped his hands together on   
his desk.  
"I came around after the Knight Sabers injured him. I stopped to  
heal her during that time." Twister waved a black-sleeved arm in   
Matagan's direction. Still white-faced, Matagan was beginning to shake a   
little, eyes slightly defocused. Twister hoped she would snap out of it   
soon as he turned his attention to Quincy again.  
"Well, both you and he showed remarkable abilities to reach this point.  
Unfortunately, Largo chose to refuse me believing that he was some form of  
god."  
"Some god. I gave him a bit of a chill and he went all to pieces." A   
vast understatement if ever there was one.  
"Do you think you are one?"  
Twister laughed. "Hardly. I will turn down your offer as well though."  
Quincy narrowed his eyes. "Then why did you come here?"  
"Forgot my laundry the last time." Twister shook his head. "Scratch   
that. Totally irrelevant. I just wanted to ask you politely to forget about   
going after the Knight Sabers again OR trying to find out who they are.  
Me too for that matter."  
"Is that a threat?"   
"No. Just a request."  
"The Knight Sabers have interfered far too often in the affairs of  
Genom. The only reason they have been left alone is that more pressing concerns  
have been..."  
"I know. Wanna know why?" Twister chuckled.  
For the first time, Quincy looked slightly angry. "You have been the  
cause for Genom's trouble in the computer networks for the past month?"  
"Well...I didn't say I had completely forgiven Genom for what happened  
that night. After all, you..."   
Suddenly, something caught both Twister and Quincy's attention,   
it was a bright flash of light that caused the two to halt their   
conversation and stare at no-longer forgotten source of that light with   
great shock.  
"What the!?" "Ms. Matagan!"  
Matagan was outlined by a bright yellow aura and her eyes glowed  
the same color, making them twin lights of power on her expressionless face.   
Her hair started flying upward wildly as wind picked up around her. When   
it was noticed by her that Twister was facing her direction her face   
contorted into a mask of rage.  
"YOU!!!"  
"Holy...argh!!" Twister want flying across the room and slammed  
painfully into a far wall, which cracked at the tremendous pressure as he   
was forced into it slightly. The power that had flung him across the   
room let go and he fell to the floor where he started getting up again.   
*Ow, ow, ow... Wasn't ready, but jeez! That would've seriously injured   
a normal person!*  
Before he was fully up, Matagan screamed furiously that her foe was  
still alive and sent winds of rage to batter him. This time Twister was ready  
and he stayed, standing in place during the onslaught, using his own power.   
Quincy was wisely keeping quiet, not wanting to attract the female   
psionic's attention to himself in her obviously unstable state of mind.  
Twister's mind whirled with thought. *Since when is Matagan psionic?   
Given her state right now...probably all of one minute. Just perfect. I'm   
fighting an out-of-control psionic who isn't in control of her faculties   
and likely able to do more than she would be able to normally as a result   
of her insanity. Boy, am _I_ the lucky one. Whoa!*  
Seeing that winds weren't getting anywhere, Matagan had decided to   
turn up the heat. Pyrokinetic style. Orange-red flames appeared in front   
of her that were fueled only by her mental powers. With a scream, Matagan   
sent a roaring line of fire towards her opponent. A frantic wave of   
Twister's arm managed to deflect the flaming line of death. He was surprised  
that controlling the flames had come naturally.  
*_Very_ good time to discover I can do it. Necessity, mother of  
invention. Of course, I knew I was telekinetic and pyro is closely related.*  
"Sir! What's going...oh my God!!" a voice cried out.  
*Oh, no.*  
Genom security forces had finally come investigating. A group of   
mixed Boomer and human guards were standing in the office's large doors  
and staring at Matagan's glowing figure. She, on the other hand, sensed danger  
and reacted, temporarily ignoring Twister. Being the bigger threat, Matagan   
telekinetically grabbed the Boomers of the group and violently twisted their   
necks, snapping their fiber-optic backbone and rendering them inoperative.   
She showed no pleasure in the act as the Boomers crashed to the floor.  
"Fuck me!" screamed the leader of the security men as he saw their   
most powerful weapons eliminated and dropped on the floor, aiming   
his weapon, shouting, "Shoot her!" The others of the group quickly aimed   
their pistols at Matagan. They were unpleasantly surprised when their   
guns were jerked out of their hands and thrown into a very far corner of   
the office. The men's eyes widened in helpless horror as flames sprung to   
life in front of Matagan and shot out towards them.  
To be blocked half a meter away.  
Matagan snarled and turned to look at Twister, the only person   
she sensed capable of deflecting her wrath. But when she did, even in her   
current state, her face reflected a measure of shock at what she now saw.  
"ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!"   
Realizing that Matagan needed to be shocked back into sanity, Twister  
decided that a very big display of power was needed to do this. Eyes   
now blazing azure through the magical darkness underneath the hood,   
Twister's blue aura had been raised and was shown to be substantially   
larger than Matagan's. He too gathered wind about him and the cloak   
billowed ominously behind him. He raised black gloved fists before him,   
blazing with his blue mindfire that was quite distinct from Matagan's   
mundane fire. Twister began walking towards her, consciously willing her to  
feel his much greater psionic power.  
She felt it. Her mask of rage cracking slightly, Matagan sent flames   
roaring towards Twister. They were not deflected this time and the mask   
cracked further when she saw him walking unharmed through the   
psionically-created flames. She tried snapping his neck like she had the   
Boomers but she couldn't move the hidden head a millimeter. Then he was   
too close for anything else.   
He stopped before her, stared into her eyes, and spoke words in a tone  
that ripped through her power-maddened mind like a dagger cooled to absolute  
zero.  
"Cease or die." His words meant what he said but Twister didn't.  
She listened to the spoken message. Even in her current state,   
Matagan realized he could easily do so and quickly relaxed her power.   
This act brought quick unconsciousness as she had used a higher level of   
power than she would normally be able to handle. Her eyes rolled  
up into her head and she went limp. Twister caught her before she fell to  
the floor, letting his own power go down, and gently laid her down.  
"Gee, that was fun," he sarcastically said.  
Quincy stood up and cautiously came around his desk. "What happened?"  
"Your executive is psionically active, which should be quite obvious.  
I'm no expert, but the sudden flow of power probably made her temporarily  
insane and she lashed out at the thing that angered and shocked her enough  
that made her active. Me. I had to shock her again to make her stop and become   
sane again. Since she knows the feeling now she shouldn't go berserk again.  
But then, I'm no expert so that's just my theory."  
"Psionic..." Quincy snapped his head up and regarded Twister carefully.  
"That statue. You made it with your mind."  
"Two points. No advanced technology, just thought."  
"Uhhh...." Matagan groaned.  
Surprised, Twister looked down at her. "That was quick."  
"What... Sir? You?" The last was spoken with some venom when she saw  
Twister's cloaked figure.  
"Do you hear voices? Have you?" inquired Twister.  
Matagan blinked. "What? Of course I don't!"   
Twister breathed a silent sigh of relief, no telepathy. Hopefully.  
"Well, she appears sane. Psionic, but sane. And so, I shall   
leave since I doubt my help is needed, or wanted for that matter. Bye!"   
One of the outside windows shattered and Twister made a running leap   
through the new exit. One thought went through his mind before he vanished.  
*First Largo, now me. Wonder how much these windows cost...* _

_Chapter Fifteen  
\--------------- _

_A garage door opened and the van that was the Knight Sabers' mobile  
command center drove inside. When the vehicle came to a complete stop, a few  
moments passed before doors opened and the van's four armoured occupants,  
along with Mackie, stepped out.  
Taking off her helmet along with the others, Priss complained, "Man,  
those Boomers didn't put up much of a fight."  
"All the better, Priss," Linna said, standing slightly behind her  
friend. "Still...you're right. Must've been cheap economy models. Poor  
investment."  
Sylia said nothing as Nene piped up to give her own opinion. "They just  
can't stand up to us!" She nodded her head with conviction.  
Priss gave her a sardonic glance. "_You're_ not the one fighting them."  
"Hmp!" Nene turned her head away. "I do my part. I don't see you  
breaking access codes..." Her voice trailed away as her helmet, previously  
nestled in Nene's armoured arm, slipped out and began floating in front of  
her face. Shock was evident on her face as the others looked on with great  
surprise.  
"Wha...wha...wha..." Nene backed up from the floating helmet and only  
stopped when she ran into something behind her. That something placed a  
deeper-than-midnight black glove on her shoulder, getting her attention  
immediately, heightening her shock and growing fear as it whispered in a  
strange, deep, and spooky voice.  
"Neeeeneeee Rooomaaanooovaaaa....."  
Head whipping around, Nene took one look behind her at the cloak-covered  
figure with a hood that contained only darkness...and screamed.  
"YYYEEEEEEEEEEEEEKKKKK!!!!!!"  
She clumsily stumbled over to the others, who had raised their weapons  
at the sudden appearance of the stranger, and ducked behind Sylia.  
"Who the hell are you?" Priss demanded, although she had a good  
suspicion and was fighting back a grin.  
"_I_ am the shadow that _creeps_..." the figure began, then hesitated  
and shook its head. "Then again, maybe not; one Darkwing is enough in the  
universe. Or any other for that matter." Twister's wide grin was evident as  
he pulled the hood off his brown-haired head. "Sorry, Nene, couldn't resist."  
The floating helmet drifted over to gently land on his outstretched and  
gloved hands.  
Priss and the others, smiles on their faces, lowered their weapons when  
they recognized their friend, but Nene was not amused. Her expression had  
morphed from fright to angry indignation and she stomped around Sylia to  
swipe her helmet from the still-grinning Twister's palms, glaring at him.  
Sputtering, she said, "You... You... I should... Hmp!" She turned around  
and left the garage, head held high in a huff, as Priss and Linna tried  
stifling their laughter.  
"Sorry!" Twister cried after the mad ADPolice officer before sighing,  
"I'm such a stinker at times," then he grinned, "but it _was_ funny."  
No longer laughing but still amused, Linna said, "Yes, but you can bet  
she'll try to get even somehow." As Twister mulled that fact over, she  
probed, "Why are you here anyway? Showing off that costume? New, isn't it?"  
"This? Oh, I've been wearing it for a week or two but it's just  
something I made when I still had my armour. Still working on a new suit to  
replace my old one, and I've made some changes that I'm ironing out the  
details on. This," he waved down, indicating the getup he currently wore,  
"isn't something to fight Boomers with, useful as it is. But," Twister looked  
inquiringly at Sylia, who had been silent since he had arrived, "the real  
reason I came is that Sylia asked me over today. For which she did not tell  
me why and I am dying to find out."  
Everyone looked at Sylia, who in turn was calmly looking at Twister.  
"Have you ever been examined by a doctor since your...change?"  
Suddenly, Twister looked very nervous. "Um, no..."  
"Why not?"  
"Well, when you can Heal yourself there's not much point." He was  
visibly agitated by the topic, making Priss, Linna, and Mackie wonder why.  
The leader of the Knight Sabers wasn't convinced. She had gotten to know  
this rather unique individual fairly well over the time that he had been  
among them and she knew that the response he had given wasn't the main reason  
he hadn't gone to a doctor. The real reason was obvious to her.  
Sylia voiced it aloud. "No, I think it's something else. Besides finding  
a doctor you could trust to do it...you don't want to know how much you've  
been changed by what happened to you." She folded her arms across her  
armoured chest and not without sympathy gave Twister a questioning glance.  
"That's the real reason, isn't it?"  
Twister dropped his gaze to the floor and was silent for a long time.  
Finally, he sighed and nodded reluctantly. "Yes. It's not something I care to  
think about much, but sometimes I do. I haven't really decided whether or not  
I'm comfortable with it. Not that I have a choice in the matter," he said  
dryly.  
"Avoiding the problem won't help," Sylia pointed out. "If you want, I  
can do an examination. I am qualified enough and have the equipment necessary  
to be reasonably thorough. Enough to get answers."  
Twister had to smile, and said, "The fact that you're likely curious  
about my psionic abilities having no impact of course." He sighed. "I guess  
I should find out what I can about myself. Sure."  
Pleased, Sylia nodded. "Good. I'll be putting the others through some  
tests for adjusting the new suits two days from now. You might as well come  
then." She waved at Priss and Linna to follow so they could get out of their  
armour. Just before she left the garage, Sylia turned her head and said,  
"I'll be testing _both_ forms, Twister." And with that, all three went  
through the door, smirks on Linna and Priss' faces.  
The look of discomfort that crossed his face caused Mackie, who had  
remained, to snicker. Twister gave him a _look_ and, with a hint of cool  
menace in his voice, said, "If _someone_ wants to find out how discomfiting  
changing sexes all the time can be, I _might_ be able to _arrange_  
something."  
The speed at which Mackie left the garage was quite satisfying.  
*Ah well, I guess I had to do it eventually. Wait a minute! New  
suits?!* Twister groaned mentally. *And thus does the last BGC episode come  
into our lives. I bet Priss destroyed someone's camera during the mission and  
I know who's. Hmm. I wonder what I can do. Or _should_ for that matter, after  
all, they DO beat the nut.*  
He pondered that for a minute before teleporting home. _

_Lisa watched the battle through the telescopic lens of her vid-cam, a  
new one of course since the one her father gave her had been destroyed by one  
of the evil Knight Sabers, and watched breathlessly as events unfolded on the  
distant roof of an unfinished building.  
The fact that she was 30+ stories high on an unsafe, windy ledge likely  
helped drive some of that breath out.  
*This time they can't take away a helpless girl's camera to prevent me  
from finding out the truth about them!* Lisa mentally crowed.  
Then her thoughts stilled as she saw the blue Knight Saber leave her  
current boomer opponent to support another of the team. Being without a  
combat partner, the Boomer immediately locked on to the pink/blue Saber, who  
didn't appear to be exactly thrilled to be chosen for a deadly dance. To her  
credit, she did do some damage, but that didn't stop the Boomer from winding  
up for a terrific backhand. Then a sword impaled itself in the Boomer's  
metallic skull. Destroyed, the Boomer collapsed.  
Lisa blinked. *A sword? Where did that come from?* she thought as she  
continued to take pictures of the fight.  
The pink/blue Saber seemed just as surprised as Lisa for she pushed up  
her outer helmet as if to confirm it with her own eyes.  
*Gotcha!!* Lisa couldn't see the face properly as she took the picture  
but she was sure that with her image enhancer/enlarger the identity of this  
Knight Saber was going to be hers! The Saber closed her helmet and left with  
the others of their dirty group once the Boomers were defeated.  
"Got it all..." she whispered, then realized where she was. Now that she  
had accomplished what she had set out to do, the determination that had got  
her to her perilous perch was gone. She swallowed. It _was_ awfully high.  
Deciding to leave before she lost her nerve, Lisa gathered herself...  
...and moved.  
"Oof!"  
"Umf!" Lisa was startled, she had run into something that wasn't there!  
This curiosity was forgotten as she found that her balance was shot because  
of the mysterious collision. And she was now beginning to fall.  
"Nononononoooooaaaahhhhh!!!!!" Suddenly, Lisa's fall was stopped by  
something grabbing her arm. She looked up after making sure she still had her  
camera.  
Nothing was there!  
"Huh?! What...?" she got out before being lifted onto the building's  
platform, by nothing, and safely dropped off. Lisa collapsed to her knees in  
relief and amazement. No one would believe...  
"Sorry about that. You okay?"  
Lisa's head shot up and saw a cloaked figure a few feet away from her,  
obviously the owner of the voice that had spoken. Little could be seen of the  
person within the cloak as what seemed to be solid shadow concealed the body  
underneath. The cloak itself was blacker than shadows but lined with a deep  
blue on the edges. The dark shroud hid everything of the person within.  
"Where did... Sorry for wha..." Her mind pieced it together. "I ran into  
_you_!"  
"You're quick." The figure sighed. "I should've seen you coming but I  
happened to be looking somewhere else when you moved. Personally, I've never  
been fond of heights and falling from this elevation is not a Good Thing. ."  
Lisa asked the question that was clamouring around in her head. "Who ARE  
you?"  
After a brief pause, during which the figure seemed to contemplating his  
answer, he spoke, "Well, I've been in this town a while so I guess you've  
heard of me. I'm called the Crystal Knight." He shrugged. "My old armour was  
trashed and I'm almost done working on a new one. So until I'm done," he  
dramatically wrapped the cloak around himself, "I'm wearing this outfit in  
the meantime."  
Lisa stared at him for a second, then turned suspicious. "How do I know  
you're _really_ the Crystal Knight? For all I know you could be some  
impost...eek!"  
She squeaked as she saw the stranger move impossibly fast and drive a  
crystal sword into the floor of the roof, one foot in front of her and before  
she could do a thing. The hand that drove it in wore a thick-looking blacker-  
than-midnight glove with the same type of dark blue lining at the end. She  
had seen boots of similar coloring as well.  
The cloaked stranger stepped back and bowed. "My credentials, lass."  
Gloves and boots disappeared within the cloak once more.  
Wondering, Lisa timidly reached out and touched the sword's hilt. It was  
solid and cool on her fingers. She made a surprised and disappointed sound  
when she saw the sword suddenly disintegrate into black dust.  
"Okay...I guess you are who you say you are," she said, a little lamely.  
The Knight chuckled.  
Remembering about her camera, Lisa whipped it up to take a picture but  
found that she couldn't press the button. Frustrated, she repeatedly tried to  
get a shot of the Knight but the button stubbornly wouldn't move.  
"Come on! I just got you! Work!" When the Knight cleared his throat she  
looked up at him.  
"Sorry, no pictures," he said with an amused tone in his voice. "Maybe  
later."  
Lisa stared at him, then at the camera. She slowly turned the camera  
around and tried to take a picture of herself. This time the camera offered  
no resistance and took the shot.  
"No... No way! That's not possible!" she stammered.  
"Heh. I may not be a mercenary group like the Knight Sabers but I do  
have a formidable bag of tricks up my sleeve." Stunned, Lisa just looked at  
him. "It's been a pleasure talking to you but I have to go. Bye!" With that,  
the Knight jumped five feet and vanished, startling her immensely.  
After a frozen moment, Lisa ran to the spot where he had stood and  
quickly searched the area. She found a faint group of footprints on the  
slightly dirty floor where he had moved while talking to her, but only those.  
Nothing else, except for the hole the sword had made, was on the rooftop. Not  
one thing to suggest how the Knight had vanished like that. Unable to  
determine anything else, she began walking over to the door for the stairs,  
thinking to herself.  
*It looks like I have two mysteries to solve: who are the Knight Sabers  
_and_ who is the Crystal Knight? I wonder if there's a connection. The Knight  
doesn't _seem_ to be a mercenary from what I've heard before, but then, what  
_is_ he then? I'll have to make him my second objective. I wonder if I can  
handle that before I have to leave...*  
At least the Knight didn't break her camera like the evil Knight Sabers._

_The next evening..._

_*I wonder if this is a good idea.*  
Twister had teleported just outside Doc. Raven's and it was with some  
understandable reluctance that he walked into the large garage. Sylia had  
told him to arrive early since he had two forms to test and she didn't know  
how long it would take.  
*I guess it's too late to say no now. I DO need to know.*  
As he walked in, Mackie, who was working on a bike, heard him and looked  
up. He grinned at Twister's expression and nodded towards the back door. "Sis  
is inside and ready for you."  
"Ready. Why does that not sound very encouraging?" He sighed and walked  
through the back door, giving Mackie a sour look as he did so when he heard  
muffled laughter behind him.  
When he entered the physical examination room, he saw that Sylia was  
standing behind a table with something on it. She gave him a small smile and  
pointed to some clothing on the table.  
"It's good that you came in your male form because we'll be testing that  
first. I made these two outfits to generally conform to each of your forms.  
The material that they're made of is stretchable enough to make up for any  
discrepancies." She pointed to a door. "You can change in there."  
"I won't need to...um...remove anything for any of the tests?" Twister's  
face turned slightly red, showing his embarrassment.  
Sylia smiled at his discomfort and shook her head. "The material you'll  
be wearing is essentially transparent to the equipment I'll be using. Besides  
some testing of your more unusual abilities, you'll also be doing what the  
others will be going through too. As part of the testing, of course."  
"Of course," he agreed wryly.  
"I also want to ask you a few questions about that armour of yours that  
you made. Despite the...ah..._unusual_ nature of its construction, there are  
a few things that I might be able to study for my own purposes. Nothing like  
whatever you used to increase your strength."  
"Increase my...?" Twister's face showed his puzzlement.  
"Yes, your suit did..." Sylia's voice trailed off as she saw his face.  
Slow understanding came to her. "Your suit _didn't_ increase your strength,  
did it?"  
"Err...no. I can boost my strength with my psionic power but my  
suit...no." His face turned contemplative. "Actually, when I reduced its  
weight with the spe..."  
"Never mind," Sylia sighed, interrupting him. "I'll ask about that  
later...when I get the full, _true_ story from you."  
"Um...well...are you _sure_ you really want to?" Sylia gave him a long,  
steady look. "Guess you do," he muttered, privately he hoped she wasn't very  
religious. Arch-demons after all...  
"Go on and change, the others should start arriving by the time we get  
close to starting your female side." After swinging the testing clothes over  
his shoulder, Twister nodded and left to change.  
Sylia studied him before turning to glance at the examination setup of  
the room.  
*If he really didn't use the armour for strength then I hope my  
equipment is sturdy enough for this.* _

_"Hi!"  
"Hi, Nene." Sylia smiled at the red-head as she walked into the testing  
room. "You can go in next after Linna."  
Nene looked at the console. "Wow! Level 8. And I still can't get past  
level 4."  
"You need to practice more, Nene. You're too weak," Priss smirked out  
over at the arm strength measurer. "And if you think level 8 is good, you  
should've seen 'Mr. Speed Demon' over there." She nodded over to where the  
treadmill was, a familiar person catching his breath.  
"Hm? Oh! Hi, Twister! I didn't know you would be here. You look a little  
tired," she observed.  
Still wearing the dark testing clothing, Twister was sitting on the  
treadmill with head slightly drooping. His hair was damp with sweat. "Hi,  
Nene. It's okay. I'll be fine in a few minutes; I recover quickly."  
"Guess Sylia tested you pretty hard," Nene said with sympathy.  
Twister rolled his eyes. "Not only did she test me physically, she also  
wanted to see me use my psionic powers. I can't believe how many things she  
had me make from unstable diamond."  
"And a stable diamond point for my work," Sylia commented absently,  
still watching Linna.  
Nene remembered Priss' comments and angrily turned to the singer. "And  
weak am I? Hmph! I contribute with my computer skills and my good looks. I  
wouldn't want to be an ape woman like you." She smiled with satisfaction.  
"And I caught you, didn't I?" she said, referring to earlier that day when  
she had been driving with Lisa and happened to spot Priss speeding. Nene had  
stopped her and gave the biker a ticket.  
"Hmph." Priss angrily turned away and kept pushing the testing bar with  
her arm.  
"Not me." Twister chuckled.  
Nene angrily whirled around to face him. "And _you_! What were you  
trying to do? You passed right by me and Priss when I gave her the ticket and  
stopped right beside my guest."  
"I thought she might want to see the legendary 'Blue Bullet'." Twister  
grinned, near laughing. He had been amusing himself at the time by staying  
right behind Priss, suspecting what would happen that day. It had been a  
sudden mischievous impulse to pass both friends and brake to a stop by a  
startled Lisa.  
"_And_ you were going twice the speed _Priss_ was over the limit," Nene  
fumed. She had found that out after returning red-faced to her car.  
"Legendary! Lisa asked me why I didn't arrest you! I felt so foolish!"  
Twister shrugged helplessly. "Well, what could I give you? I don't  
exactly have a licence you know. Anyway, I think she'll find out THP has  
already tried to catch me often enough," he grinned broadly, "without  
success. Then she won't think badly of you. They are getting more persistent  
though," he pondered out loud.  
"YAAA!!!!"  
Nene turned at the muffled shout to see Linna's holographic opponent  
disappear in defeat. "Linna's done."  
"And now it's your turn, Nene."  
"Uh...do I have to?" she weakly asked.  
"Of course! I need the data for the suits."  
"Okay..."  
Twister chuckled and stood up. "I think I'll go change now. You don't  
want too big an audience for this."  
Frowning angrily, Nene whirled to face him. "And just what do you mean  
by _that_?"  
"Nothing, nothing..." he held up his hands in front of him, backing away  
with lips twitching, the sign of a grin threatening to burst out on his face.  
"Hey, Twister," Linna said, getting out of the simulator. "Show Nene  
that weird move of yours."  
"Show _you_ you mean," Twister replied with a knowing smile at the  
martial artist who put an innocent expression on her face, hiding her  
eagerness.  
Nene blinked, wondering what they were taking about. "What move?"  
He waved a hand dismissively. "Oh, the universe I was in before has some  
really unusual martial arts' moves involving ki. A friend of mine showed me  
one of them but I've been trying to make up one or two of my own to see if I  
could."  
"Ki?" Nene said doubtfully, wondering if he was joking.  
"Just watch. I came up with this one after spending a little time  
thinking on the possibilities." Twister took a deep breath and his face  
turned calm. Almost too calm. He quickly shot out his arms straight out,  
angled slightly downwards, in front of him and had both pointing fingers  
touch each other. Where they joined a white glow started to grow.  
"DIAMOND KI DEFENCE!"  
At the naming of the move, Twister quickly and precisely drew an octagon  
of energy around himself and finished the shape behind himself. Then he  
raised both now-glowing fists high above himself. A field of force shot  
outwards from just above the fists to form a smaller octagon. Lines of light  
from the previous shape and the new one leaped towards each other to form a  
network of triangle-shaped surfaces. The lower octagon grew slightly and sent  
more lines downwards to mirror what had already been done above. When it was  
finished, it looked like Twister was standing in the center of a very large  
diamond with glowing white edges.  
Nene's eyes were wide with amazement. "Wow..."  
Linna went over and patted a hand carefully and reverently on the  
diamond shape. "This thing is _hard_. I tried kicking it and almost sprained  
my ankle. He says it isn't actually diamond, only ki-force." She shook her  
head as she examined the field. "I wouldn't mind being able to do something  
like this myself."  
"Wow..." Nene repeated. "This is amazing, Twister." Nene frowned as she  
got no reply. "Can't he talk to us?"  
"Nah," Priss said. "He said he needs all his attention on keeping it up.  
Another benefit." She grinned.  
Twister lowered his hands and the field shattered into its separate  
surfaces and slowly fell to the ground, looking all the world like glass  
shards until they vanished.  
"Very funny, Priss."  
"I thought so."  
"I _can_ hear while doing it. But you _really_ don't want to know how  
long it took to perfect that move. Oh, thanks, Nene," the red-head started to  
smile but he continued with a grin, "and I hope you won't get too badly  
defeated. Well, I'd better change. Back soon." He turned, still grinning  
face.  
As Twister left to get changed, Nene fumed. "_That_ does it. We need to  
do _something_ to get back at Darlene!" she said angrily, using Twister's  
female name as she, as well as Linna and Priss, knew her friend best that  
way.  
"We?" Priss and Linna chorused.  
"Oh, come on, guys!" Nene pleaded, clasping both hands together. "Help  
me, please?"  
Linna and Priss looked at each other. Finally, Priss said, "Well... I do  
know something that might work and I think she does need to get her tires  
deflated a bit more."  
"Hm, it wouldn't hurt to take her down a peg," Linna agreed, she really  
wanted Darlene to try teaching her about those ki moves, but Priss was right.  
"What did you have in mind?" Hopefully she could ask about those moves later.  
"Yes, yes, yes! What? What?" Nene eagerly asked.  
"Someone I know told me of this party next month that a friend of his  
was going to be testing something at, as a joke of sorts."  
"Testing? Testing what?" Linna asked curiously.  
"Some new chemical that supposedly nullifies all means of someone being  
able to tell if the punch is spiked," Priss grinned, "no matter how heavily  
it is. Smell, taste, you name it."  
"And Nene gets Darlene to drink some and get her drunk!" Linna revised  
her statement when she recalled something. "Hmm.. A _lot_ is more like it.  
Remember Leon, Nene?" Darlene had challenged the officer to a drinking  
contest a long time ago, and had won with some margin to spare. Considering  
that Leon was no stranger to drinking, and Darlene's lesser body weight, this  
had been impressive.  
"Hey! Why me?" Nene protested.  
"You're the one who suggested it. You do it," Priss countered the red-  
head's objection.  
"But what do I do after she's drunk?"  
"Be imaginative," the singer replied, grinning as she had a few ideas of  
her own.  
"Ahem! Nene? Your test?" Sylia patiently said, wanting to get on with  
the examination. She had waited for the others to finish but she did want to  
finish.  
Nene sighed. "Coming, Sylia."_


	4. Twisted Path 3.2

Chapter Sixteen  
\--------------- 

In his laboratory, Dr. Miriam was hard at work, gleefully going over the  
data received from the fights of his Boomers against the Knight Sabers. Only  
one more fight was required to get the total information on their hardsuits  
he needed. Then, he would create wonderfully unique Boomers to destroy the  
them!  
"They will be my masterpieces!" he cried aloud in slightly crazed glee.  
"A testament to my incredible genius once they humiliate, then rip the Knight  
Sabers apart! Then no one will be able to deny my genius!"  
"How original," a voice laced with a slight taste of sarcasm said from  
the doorway that he had failed to hear open during his ranting.  
"What?! Who are...you...?" His voice died once he glimpsed who stood in  
the doorway.  
"A representative," the amused, female, voice said. The voice's owner  
stepped into the workshop with one graceful stride, allowing the door to  
close behind her. Long, warm brown hair seemed to flow around the strange  
female when she stopped, then flowed back to rest on her back. Her voice was  
suggestive and, combined with the incredible figure that showed even through  
the business dress she wore, started the startled scientist's knees shaking.  
The unmarred, slightly tanned face held a pair of startling blue eyes hinting  
of mischief and, flickering so briefly the doctor thought he imagined it,  
malice. "From one who also wishes the Knight Sabers destroyed," she  
concluded, using those delightful looking lips once more.  
Shaking his head to clear it of these ridiculous feelings, the doctor  
stood up as his knees had bent a bit during his lapse. He was surprised the  
woman was almost as tall as he was, still...anger built at this intrusion.  
"I can take care of them myself!" he snapped. "My creations can overcome  
anything, even the Knight Sabers! Who _are_ you?!"  
"I am Yanda." she said, unruffled. "And does anything include the  
Crystal Knight?"  
"What?! There's no indication that he should...interfere..." his voice  
trailed off as he recalled a previous fight when one of his Boomers had been  
destroyed by a strange object that appeared from nowhere. Suddenly, he felt  
a little less confident.  
Yanda was contemptuous. "He fights rogue Boomers. Of course he will come  
if it's serious enough. But," she smiled secretly at him, "my Master has a  
proposition for you that can help deal with the Crystal Knight without  
interfering with your own plans for the Knight Sabers. Something that might  
be even more potentially rewarding than mere Boomers...if you agree. And also  
if you're intelligent enough. The possibilities would be incredible..." her  
voice trailed off temptingly.  
Naturally, Miriam couldn't let this challenge go unheard. Irritably, he  
went to a nearby chair and sat down on it and waved at her. "Very well, I am  
listening."  
Yanda smiled, he would not be able to resist the bait she was about  
dangle in front of him.  
Perfect. 

The next morning was bright and cheerful, but in ADPolice headquarters,  
not everyone was happy.  
Leon sheepishly smiled down at Nene who still shaking a bit from the  
shock of him springing up in front of her desk. He inwardly cursed at  
himself, if he had known she would had been so frightened he wouldn't have  
done it.  
"Ah...sorry, Nene. Er...I...that is..."  
The red-headed young woman slowly stopped her shaking and a growing  
anger was beginning to show on Nene's face as she picked herself off the  
floor. "Sorry? Sorry?!? You scare me out of my mind and that's _it_?!? That's  
not good enough, Leon! That was..."  
Someone else behind Leon chuckled and managed to get Leon to hear his  
voice during Nene's furious diatribe. "You think you can spare an hour of  
your time? If you think you can calm her down that is."  
Leon grimaced as he recognized the voice, but calming Nene down was the  
more immediate problem.  
"Nene," he said plaintively, interrupting her, "I'm really, really sorry  
about this and..." Leon paused.  
"And...?" Nene echoed angrily.  
He sighed, but smiled inwardly since he knew the solution to this  
problem. "And I'll give you three coupons for the new Dessert Palace that  
opened up. When I can get them," he promised.  
Nene wavered as she remembered Priss, Linna, and Darlene's laughter when  
Priss had dragged her over to the body scanner, showing her shameful  
waistline. But, she reasoned, Leon _should_ pay for scaring her like that.  
"Alright..." she slowly agreed.  
"Great! Later, Nene!" Leon quickly turned to the person behind him and  
as fast as he could walk, got away from the scene of the embarrassment. One  
crisis averted and, unfortunately, possibly an even more unpleasant one  
before him.  
When the two were a safe enough distance away, Leon growled, "Alright,  
Potter, what's the ADPolice officer I dislike the most doing here?" 

"So _this_ is the reason??" Leon demanded incredulously. "When did you  
get the funding for these?!?"  
"No funding. Donated," Potter grinned as Leon disbelievingly scanned the  
garage's contents. "It seems Genom felt that ADP would do nicely to test  
these babies. That Griffin incident proved it right enough. And someone also  
decided to put me in command of them. Got just the right job for them too."  
The objects of their discussion were two rows of cars that counted  
twenty for each line. They were freshly painted and polished in the ADPolice  
style, but these cars were different than standard police vehicles. They were  
sleeker, more streamlined, and made for speed. Potter had even hinted that  
they would've given even the Griffin a run for its' money had they had these  
cars at the time. This suggested that the material of the cars were likewise  
strengthened for the rough duties of an ADPoliceman. The Griffin had not been  
an easy car to catch.  
Leon turned to sourly look at the person beside him. Randy Potter was  
not one of his favourite persons and the malicious smirk the guy wore did not  
make him revise that opinion. Slightly taller than Leon, and with a slimmer  
build, the black-haired, hawk-nosed man would've had no trouble with the  
women if it wasn't for the need the THP officer had to flaunt what he had to  
everybody in the police force. Most females seemed to sense Potter's  
arrogance from forty feet away, not that the man cared; his ego was big  
enough for two people. Leon had the misfortune of training with the bastard  
and had formed an instant dislike to the man. So did everyone else. The only  
reason he was a lieutenant was because some of that ego was justified and  
considering the size of IT...he was very good at his work. Unless that same  
ego got in the way.  
"And what job would that be?" Leon inquired.  
Potter's face turned slightly angry as if remembering something  
unpleasant. "To bring in that Blue Bullet character."  
Leon blinked, then remembered something. "Oh, yes. You tried to catch  
him once, didn't you? Said that THP was staffed with idiots and went after  
him yourself to prove it." A lazy smile grew on his face. "As I recall  
you...ah...didn't get him. Something about a wrecked car...?"  
"Yes," Potter growled out, unlike his usual self-assured tone of voice.  
"Me and my partner were tricked into crashing our car and the bastard  
_mocked_ me! He just sat there with an amused air about him and _waved_ at us  
as we got out of our car! I'll catch him if it's the last thing I do!"  
*Uh oh. Looks like he's obsessed with catching the Bullet.* Leon frowned  
inwardly. *I wonder if Genom knew that when they 'suggested' Potter command  
the squad.* Aloud he said, "Did you bring me here just to show off your new  
toys?"  
"No." Potter got control of himself and waved at the cars arrayed before  
them. "I want you to help me catch him."  
Leon was surprised, this wasn't what he had expected. "Me? Why?"  
"First, you're one of the few people who can handle one of these babies  
to get its full potential. What's more important, however, is that you  
probably know more about the bastard than anybody, possibly excepting your  
would-be girlfriend. Her name's Priss, I believe?"  
Leon shook his head, ignoring Potter's jab about Leon's efforts for  
Priss. "Believe me, she told me everything she knows about the guy, and some  
very unlikely and personal remarks about his heritage. Loudly." He had to  
grin at the memory. "She wasn't too impressed about him getting her into so  
many speed traps. From her reactions I don't think she knows who he is."  
"But their bikes and equipment are virtually identical," Potter pressed.  
"I know. That was another thing that annoyed her to no end. Funny thing  
is, I checked the database for motorcycle owners and nobody has any mention  
of his bike. Even Priss' bike is in there, but not his. So he must have made  
the thing himself after seeing hers," Leon deduced. "And knowing how souped  
up hers is, I have to be impressed at him outdoing Priss. Must be some closet  
mechanical genius cyclist who has a thing for her. Or her bike."  
"Damn," Potter viciously said, frustrated. "I came to that conclusion  
too and had no luck finding him. Guess we'll just have to run him down the  
hard way." He didn't look like he was disappointed at that conclusion. Rather  
the opposite. "Join the team when we go after him?"  
Leon shrugged. "Why not? Sounds like it'll be interesting." He also  
wanted to keep an eye on Potter.  
Potter grinned with pleasure at his victory. "Great! Take one now so  
you'll be able to help when he appears. I'll see you then." He walked away,  
anticipating his future victory.  
Shaking his head at the man's departure, Leon turned to the sleek new  
cars, a big smile on his face. He whistled as he approached the one he chose,  
though he suspected he wouldn't have it for long after Potter's 'mission' was  
over.  
*Might as well enjoy it while I have it.* 

The next day had the sun shining brightly outside.  
"Darlene! Phone!"  
The red-headed owner of the store, who was placing the last of a new  
batch of dragon figurines in place, turned her head at the call.  
"Hmm? Oh, thanks, Sylvie." Smiling at her friend and assistant, Darlene  
walked over to the vid-phone partly concealed from the rest of the store and  
brightened when she saw who was calling. "Sylia! Hi! What's up?"  
The leader of the Knight Sabers smiled at her greeting but seemed a  
little concerned about something. "I've finished the results of the  
examination that I gave you."  
Darlene's eyebrows shot up. "Should I be worried? You scanned me fairly  
thoroughly and it has taken you a few days."  
Sylia shook her head. "I only looked for specific information that could  
pose a danger to yourself or others." She hesitated. "There wasn't anything  
like that. The opposite in fact."  
"The opposite? Bwah?" Darlene blinked a few times in confusion. "I don't  
follow you."  
"Maybe you should come to my place right now so I can explain."  
"Sure... It's been a slow day." Sylia nodded and closed the connection.  
Darlene frowned; what could it be that wasn't dangerous to her and yet has  
Sylia worried? She sighed. Waiting to find out wouldn't likely help. "Sylvie.  
Anri," she called out. When both turned to face her, she rolled her eyes. "My  
doctor asked me to visit her. And although it's been such a _busy_ day," the  
sexaroids grinned at the exaggeration, "she wants me to go over my  
examination results with her."  
Concerned, Anri said, "Anything bad?"  
"No...but she seemed worried." Darlene shrugged. "I'll find out when I  
get there..." 

"WHAT did you say??"  
Numb, Twister heavily sat down onto one of the soft chairs in Sylia's  
large living room, staring up at Sylia, whose eyes showed some concern as she  
carefully watched his reactions to the news.  
She repeated herself. "I said: your physical body is not aging at a  
normal rate."  
Shaking his head, Twister calmed down a bit. He could just be  
overreacting to this a little. Still... "How can you tell?" he asked a little  
shakily but in full control.  
"If I had just the examination results of a few days ago, I might not  
have known. But I told you that I had scanned your female form when we first  
met during that exam, right?"  
Twister rolled his eyes. "Nothing like trust at first sight."  
Sylia shrugged innocently. He, as Darlene, had been a lot more vocal  
when she had revealed this during the scan of his female half. "Anyway, the  
first gave me a very precise scan of musculature, skeletal structure, and  
other macro scale items of your body. The micro scale is what I was more  
concerned about; cellular structure, neurochemical balances, and other things  
that might eventually be fatal. But when I compared the two macro scale  
scans..."  
"You found out I wasn't aging at a normal rate?" Twister said  
sceptically.  
Sylia nodded. "Yes. The human body changes continually, even from day to  
day, in the macro and micro scale. It might have been impossible to detect  
the changes a decade ago, but today we can. When I compared the two scans, I  
saw the differences in the readings." She was watching Twister carefully now.  
"And what? I live to be two hundred? Three?" Not seeing Sylia change her  
expression, he hesitantly added, "Four?"  
"The readings indicated a change comparable to one day."  
"So it's one day. That's no reason to panic..." It sunk in at that  
point, and Twister's eyes widened in disbelief. "Waitaminute! The first scan  
was over a year older than the second!!"  
"Yes."  
"Now. _Now_ we start panicking," Twister faintly said. His eyes glazed  
over as he figured out how long that meant. "That's practically a given  
thirty thousand years, then adding on around ten to twenty thousand for  
yucks! My God, all that time paying life insurance..."  
"Are you alright?"  
"Considering what you've just said, I'm _gonna_ be alright for a  
looooooong time." He chuckled weakly for a second before sighing and closing  
his eyes tightly, rubbing his face with his hands. "No, I'm _not_ alright.  
How would you feel if someone told you this? Are you _sure_?"  
Sylia nodded her head, face full of sympathy. "Haven't you noticed that  
you look the same as when you first got here? You still look seventeen years  
old, and for _either_ sex at that time you usually change a lot in a short  
period." She tilted her head a little, considering. "You do manage to appear  
older by your behaviour, enough so that no one questions that you own a  
store. Many people likely think you just appear younger naturally."  
"Naturally!" Twister snorted, still dazed by the news. "I guess you  
might call being altered by a...er...sort of natural force that." Forcing  
himself out of his own confusion, he stood up abruptly. "I think I need some  
air. Maybe I'll go cycling on the highways." Twister got ready to teleport.  
"Wait!" Sylia quickly held up a hand as she deduced what he was about to  
do.  
"What?" Seeing her hesitant face, he felt a sinking sensation somewhere  
in his stomach. "Don't tell me there's more?"  
"That was what I found on the macro scale, the micro scale was more  
disturbing. As with the macro scale, of which I only mentioned one item,  
there were numerous things, but this is the most important. Normally, as the  
body develops, you can find dead cells throughout the body. When their  
numbers begin to increase, some things like hair or skin start failing.  
Eventually, major organs become non- functional. This process of cells dying  
happens every second. In your case, both male and female bodies showed _no_  
signs of cells being non-functional."  
"Wait." Twister was even more confused now. "If I'm showing signs of a  
very slow aging process, wouldn't it be normal for no cells to die during a  
relatively brief exam?"  
"Maybe, but there was no sign of _any_ dead cell on your body, with the  
exception of your surface skin layers and hair. Not even your brain, and  
untold thousands of brain cells usually die every second."  
"So...I'm aging physically, but I'm not aging normally in the cellular  
case?"  
"I suspect you may be unconsciously using your powers in either body to  
sustain this. It may also prevent you from getting any virus or bacteria that  
would be harmful to you. I couldn't tell as I was looking for other data."  
Twister stood there silently. "So I might live even longer, but I'm  
still changing physically...which shouldn't happen if my body is trying hard  
to keep cells from dying...which is a part of aging...which..." he ran out of  
words.  
"There must be something else happening to explain all this, but as it's  
all going so slowly it's hard to tell what that might be."  
There was a few seconds of silence.  
"I need some air," Twister slowly said, then vanished.  
Sylia sighed and stood there for some time after he left, thinking to  
herself. There was something else that might become a potential problem.  
She'd noticed that, as Twister, her friend was usually a fairly calm,  
somewhat logical individual with a hint of mischievousness thrown in. From  
what she had understood from the tale told her about his/her past, it had  
taken a serious physical threat to him or to another he cared about to anger  
him and thus use the full force of his considerable power, otherwise his use  
of psionic powers was minimal when fighting someone. She concluded that, deep  
down, Twister wasn't really comfortable with his powers yet and normally  
reluctant to use them. Perfectly understandable.  
What really concerned and disturbed her was that, when comparing female  
Darlene and male Twister, she had noticed a few differences in behaviour. At  
times, Darlene appeared to be more emotional, a little rash sometimes, and  
surprisingly more female in behaviour than when Sylia had first met her.  
Which might be understandable except...there was twenty years experience  
being male in that mind and a fairly stable, adaptable yet strong mind at  
that. But there were signs that told her that for some reason, when female,  
Darlene was far more emotional now than she used to be before all her changes  
had happened. Perhaps it was psychological, perhaps something to do with that  
thing he called the Event. Maybe the latter, he _was_ more logical as a male,  
but that didn't concern her.  
This did.  
When male, by what she had been told, Twister had been very angry  
several times, and when this happened Sylia had been told by Twister himself  
that he had slightly changed mentally. He had been cold, emotionless save  
anger, logical, and controlled. But Darlene appeared to be Twister's  
opposite; in sex, in power, and...emotionally.  
What would happen if Darlene got really mad?  
This obviously hadn't occurred to Darlene. Sylia felt she had better  
warn the red-head after the shock from the latest news had worn off enough.  
She felt slightly worried about waiting, but Darlene hadn't been really angry  
for the past year. Perhaps the old psychological patterns were keeping  
Darlene from 'blowing up,' restraining the reactions of her more emotional  
state. If so, it could wait a week or two.  
No need to make things worse at the moment. 

Chapter Seventeen  
\----------------- 

Twister stopped and studied the motorbike he had created before getting  
onto it. It still amused him at times that he had exactly duplicated Priss'  
bike to create the deep blue, with purple lines, colored motorcycle.  
He held up his helmet and saw himself in the black, slightly reflective  
visor. It was the same face he had seen yesterday and when he thought back to  
when he had first looked at his altered face, after his first battle with  
Malkon, he remembered that it had been the same then too. Sighing, Twister  
put the helmet on and mounted his bike.  
A lifetime of over thirty thousand years. I still can't really believe  
that, he thought, even knowing that I _do_ look the same as I did two years  
ago. I guess I would have realized it myself eventually. He shook his head.  
Hard to swallow that tidbit of info, isn't it, Twister? Very hard... oh,  
heck! Twister irritably kicked life into the machine and revved the engine,  
the sound echoing in the huge cavern.  
Enough brooding on what's already been done. Time to ride.  
With that he teleported for the streets. 

"Leon! Leon! Pick up your mike! Answer me!"  
Surprised, Leon glanced down at the new car's police radio which was  
issuing Potter's excited voice. He had gone out to get a feel for the new car  
that he had taken from the ADPolice garage. Unfortunately, the Chief had  
decreed that Leon would be on his own while Daley stayed on regular patrol.  
It was too bad; the car was a dream as far as he was concerned.  
He picked up the mike. "Keep your cool, Potter. What's got you all  
excited?"  
"He's been spotted! In the downtown area no less!" There was no need to  
say who.  
"Must be feeling social," Leon quipped.  
Potter wasn't listening. "All units are converging on his location. The  
overconfident bastard's trapped himself. We've got him for sure!"  
"Does this mean I don't get to keep the car?"  
Now the other was angry. "Just be there. The location's on your  
vid-map." If one could imagine the sound of a mike hanging up over the radio  
Leon heard Potter manage it.  
He shook his head. "I don't know who to feel more sorry for: Potter, or  
the Bullet." Leon sighed and turned on his police lights.  
"Oh, well. Let's see who wins." 

SSCCCRRREEEECCCHHH!!!!  
Twister didn't even have time to wince as he was far too occupied doing  
a hard right into a busy street. Meanwhile, the police vehicle that had been  
insanely too close on his tail couldn't quite make the same maneuver and  
crashed into a store display window.  
He hadn't gone another block when another police cruiser appeared behind  
him.  
Argh! What IS this? Bite the Bullet day??? Methinks someone in ADPolice  
is a little ticked off me. Better get to the more deserted section of the  
city as I don't like doing damage to downtown... He made another turn and the  
cruiser followed. A quick look back confirmed something. Those are NOT  
standard THP or ADP equipment. Too agile by half; I'm gonna have trouble with  
these things. Did ADPolice win the funding lottery or something?  
A slow smile grew on his face as he weaved through traffic.  
Then again, they must be feeling pretty confident with their new toys,  
Twister thought and suddenly felt very mischievous. Guess I'm going to have  
to frustrate them a little to burst their bubble. Heh, heh, heh. 

"Keep on him! Don't lose him!" Potter clenched his hands in front of him  
as his driver strained to keep up with the blue motorcycle. "Your ass is  
MINE, asshole!" he crowed to the helmeted figure in front of them.  
"I think he's heading to a more deserted part of the city," his driver  
managed to say through his intense concentration of keeping up with their  
agile target.  
"Perfect! We can box him in more easily!"  
They barely kept up with the more maneuverable cyclist as he turned left  
down one street then right down another. Potter shouted commands over the  
radio to try to surround the target but the streets and the speeds they were  
going made it difficult to do so.  
Suddenly, they turned into a miraculously clear, broken-down street.  
Luck seemed to be smiling on Potter as there was another two cruisers at the  
opposite end of the road, bearing down on the Bullet.  
"We've got him now! There's only an alley left for him and it's a dead  
end!"  
"He's not slowing down," the driver said, a little concerned.  
"He knows he's trapped."  
Then the blue bike put on a burst of speed and accelerated until it was  
almost midway between Potter and the other two cars. At that point the Bullet  
did a hard turn into the narrow one-car wide alley, the police cruisers  
closing in.  
"I wish I could see his face when he realizes it's a dead end. WHAT THE  
HELL?!?!?" Potter screamed in disbelief at what he saw next.  
The Blue Bullet roared out of the alley that was far too narrow for such  
a large bike to turn around in, and with almost no loss of speed as when he  
had roared into it. This startled all three drivers of the police vehicles  
enough to forget to brake in time as he zoomed around the car that had been  
chasing him. Potter's driver reacted first, braking hard and the car started  
turning, blocking the road. The other two cars smashed into it, rendering all  
three immobile.  
Both Potter and his driver panted as adrenaline coursed through their  
systems.  
"Impossible," Potter muttered, recovering. "Impossible, and it was!" He  
straightened as he reached out for the CB's mike and turned in on. "All  
units! The fugitive has disabled three more units and is still on the loose!  
Capture at all costs! I repeat..."  
His driver wearily leaned on the steering wheel.  
This is going to be a long day...,he thought, mentally sighing as he  
listened to his superior rant to the CB. 

Twister grinned inside the helmet. THAT was the TTA manoeuvre, guys;  
Teleport Turn-Around. Another police cruiser screeched its tires as it turned  
to follow him. He groaned as he accelerated.  
"Here we go again," he muttered to himself, disgusted. "Hmm. I wonder if  
any of them have seen Tron. I bet I can do a REAL good imitation of a  
lightcycle. Like...instant ninety degree turns coming up?"  
His grin appeared once more.  
This night might turn out to be a good one after all. 

Sylia sat down in front of the radio equipment she used to contact Nene  
at work. Mackie had whispered that the red-head needed to tell her something  
badly so she had quietly left the store to go to the communications room to  
find out what was the matter.  
I wonder what it is... she thought as she pressed a button and put on a  
headset. "Nene? Are you there?"  
"Sylia, you finally made it." Nene's voice was full of relief and  
concern.  
"What is it?"  
"ADPolice are after the Blue Bullet!" Nene said in a frantic whisper.  
So much for Twister getting some air, Sylia thought. "What did he do?"  
"Nothing! Some lieutenant I don't know apparently got permission to  
apprehend him. I didn't know about it until the Bullet was spotted and  
everyone went into a frenzy!" Nene's voice turned amused. "He's wrecked at  
least five of those new cars trying to avoid being caught and causing no end  
of confusion. He's feeling tricky I guess. No one's been hurt, aside from  
wounded pride, that is. What?! Hey!!"  
Sylia didn't like the tone of concern that had appeared in Nene's voice.  
"What is it?"  
"A Boomer just showed up! It's blocking ADPolice efforts to catch the  
Bullet. And another one just appeared!"  
"Nene, you said 'new' cars. What 'new' cars?"  
"I'm not sure. Somebody whispered that Genom..." Nene trailed off as a  
dawning suspicion grew. "You don't think Genom is after Dar..."  
"No," Sylia interrupted, mind racing. "But they may suspect he's the  
Knight. Keep tabs on events. I'll see if I can get the others."  
"Okay. Hm? Oh, Lisa! Nothing, just muttering to myself. Yes, that  
lieutenant's voice IS funny." Nene's transmission ended rather quickly.  
Sylia frowned. What is Genom up to this time? she wondered as she  
activated the beepers on Priss and Linna's watches. Mackie is making the fine  
adjustments on the new suits but that won't be done for a few hours so we'll  
use the old ones one last time.

Meanwhile, Twister was wondering where his imposed playmates had gone  
to.  
Odd, they were everywhere a few minutes ago, now...nothing?  
"I don't like this at all..." he muttered aloud, turning his head left  
and right and looking for trouble.  
Then a STRONG feeling to brake sharply and turn lanced through his mind  
and he acted on this impulse without delay. A good thing to do; a blue plasma  
blast lanced into the street where he would have been if he hadn't turned.  
Still, the resulting explosion of exploding street jarred him enough that he  
had to wrestle with his bike to get it under control. Looking behind, he saw  
the Boomer that had attacked him leap off the building roof from where it had  
fired, land, and after turning its' flight vents on, begin chasing him.  
Twister immediately started swerving to avoid giving the Boomer a chance  
to lock on to him. He wasn't happy with the way things were going.  
"First brand-new ADPolice pursuit vehicles, now Boomers?! Okay, the  
former I would've thought harmless, but BOTH?? Hmmm...gee, I wonder who could  
be behind this. G...E...N...O...M...and Genom is it's name-o," he  
sarcastically sang to himself. A second Boomer smashed through a wall in the  
street ahead and began flying his way. When he turned into another street,  
the two followed him as a group, firing randomly to keep him occupied.  
Yikes! he thought as he dodged the Boomer strikes. And all I wanted was  
some air! Sheesh!  
Twister shifted the bike slightly to avoid the rain of bullets one  
Boomer shot at him, and immediately did so again when the second Boomer did  
the same a half-second later. Turning sharply, the Bullet went into an alley.  
The Boomers tried to fit into the passage but were thrown out of the way when  
the blue motorcycle returned at full speed, doing a wheelie, knocking them  
out of the way and turning back onto the street.  
One Boomer had gotten tossed into a building while the other tumbled  
momentarily in mid-flight before righting itself. With grinding snarls the  
two powerful androids started up the pursuit again.  
When a particle bolt flashed by him, Twister almost sighed; he'd hoped  
that trick had taken them off his tail. No such luck.  
He continued to try losing the two as the skies grew darker, without  
success. The only times it seemed he could was when ADPolice showed up.  
Unfortunately, the Boomers managed to keep them away and still keep up with  
the speedy Bullet.  
It was odd that more ADPolice hadn't shown up. Must be more than just  
these two then, he thought, and...whoa!! Twister screeched to a stop just in  
time; the street he had turned into was blocked off by an impressive amount  
of debris that was far too high to jump over. The Boomers that had been  
chasing him landed in the intersection where he had turned off, trapping him.  
Uh, oh. Trouble... It wasn't the Boomers that worried him; he could  
handle them with psionics if he had no choice. Somehow, though, he felt that  
there was more than just Boomers involved here.  
"So, Crystal Knight, here you are at last," a familiar voice that he  
recognized called out. Madagan's. Somehow he wasn't surprised. Twister  
quickly turned his head to where the voice had come from and then he WAS  
surprised. Surprised at what he saw...and sensed.  
Whatever Madagan was wearing reminded him of a scuba diver's suit,  
remotely. The shiny black material of her suit hung close to her trim figure  
and bright yellow lines traced across the black stuff in a suspiciously  
orderly and meaningful pattern. Her face was partially uncovered, the eyes  
being protected by some reflective, silvery substance formed into a visor.  
The suit covered the back of her neck, forehead, and around her face while  
allowing her hair to escape freely. There was a lot of the yellow lines in  
the headband and some kind of equipment on her back. What worried him was  
that he couldn't find out what it was. Something was blocking him somehow and  
that wasn't a very good sign as he figured Madagan wasn't...shouldn't have  
been strong enough to do that.  
"Ah... Me? The Crystal Knight?" Twister laughed half-heartedly. "You  
must have the wrong guy."  
Madagan smiled in self-satisfied amusement. "After I felt you trying to  
find out about my new suit and blocking your attempt? I don't think so."  
Insert head and kick thoroughly to correct brain, Twister mentally  
cursed, then gave up the pretence as he turned on his bike to face his female  
adversary. "Oh, okay. I am. What's your beef that Genom sics ADPolice and  
Boomers on me anyhow? And how did you block my scan?" he added curiously.  
"The first is simple enough. We want," she pointed at the blue-clad  
biker, "YOU. Although my new-found psi powers have impressed researchers in  
Genom with the sheer potential of my abilities, we know your natural power  
exceeds my own by a great amount. That is why when you next appeared in your  
other persona we arranged things so that you would eventually be forced here.  
It was an impressive effort of planning."  
"For some reason I'm not flattered," he commented as he rested one elbow  
on his bike. She ignored him.  
"To accomplish this, and answering your second question, I'm using the  
fruits of labour from a largely ignored section of Genom. This suit was  
available and pre-made. With it, I..."  
Two explosions originating from where the Boomers had been standing  
guard interrupted Madagan and she looked away from Twister to see what had  
happened. He too looked, and smiled at what he saw.  
The Boomers were down with large, smoking holes in their bodies.  
Standing over them were Priss and Linna in their hardsuits, made even more  
impressive by the motoroids surrounding their armoured bodies, the large  
hand-held cannons smoking. Sylia, in hardsuit only, stood in the middle of  
the street while the other two flanked her.  
"You up there, I suggest you leave. Now," Sylia called out, Linna and  
Priss raising their motoroid's weapons to punctuate that command.  
Anger clearly shown on her face, Madagan started to shout, but then  
calmed down mysteriously, and smiled. "With it, I was about to say, I can  
do...THIS!" Her suit's yellow lines pulsed and glowed as a wave of  
telekinetic force lashed out at the four in the street.  
Twister lost ground as he wasn't prepared for the unexpected strength of  
Madagan's attack. Still, he protected himself and his bike as they both slid  
backward, carving gouges in the street as he struggled to stay upright.  
However, the three Knight Sabers didn't have his psionic advantages and  
received the full force of the blast. In only her suit, Sylia was thrown  
violently down the street and luckily didn't hit anything, rolling when she  
hit pavement. Linna and Priss, in the heavier motoroids, were thrown with  
less force, but impacted with the buildings on either side of the street.  
Unlike Twister's usual psi-force blasts, which were only air  
telekinetically accelerated, Madagan's blast was pure psi-force. More  
efficient, he guessed, as it didn't have to waste energy moving air and make  
it move through air resistance. He'd have to learn how to do that.  
Later. He was a little busy now.  
Madagan threw back her head and laughed mockingly at those below her.  
"This suit was designed for the express purpose of testing the idea of  
amplifying human thought waves for use in remote control operations AND  
seeing if true mind-over-matter powers were possible. The woman being tested  
happened to be my size and since I could already move things with my mind,  
the researchers, once they were told of my new abilities, were most  
interested in what would happen. You've felt the results for yourselves. It  
amplified my telekinetic powers." She glanced up at the darkening sky, then  
focused her attention on Twister. "It's getting late, Knight. Come with me or  
else I'll 'play' with the Knight Sabers till they fall apart."  
The Bullet's black visor just continued to stare in the purple-haired  
Genom psionist. Priss' swearing could be heard in the background as she and  
Linna began moving again. Sylia was nowhere to be seen. 

"Damn, damn, damn, DAMN!!!" Priss swore angrily as she struggled to get  
the motoroid out of the rubble and standing once more. Whatever had hit her  
had NOT behaved like a normal blast; she'd been hurt inside the suit more  
than she figured she should've been, as if it had passed _through_ her  
protective armour somewhat. The same with her equipment as well, the circuits  
must have been jolted something fierce as her motoroid's movements were  
sluggish.  
"Priss, are you alright?" Linna called over their private radio link  
sounding concerned and not so hot herself.  
"Just a lot of damn bruises, and what the FUCK hit us?!?"  
Sylia's welcome voice spoke up. "I suspect it was some form of psionic  
attack, likely telekinesis." Her tone turned arch. "Our friend, Twister at  
the moment, seems to have neglected to mention Miss Madagan's new talents."  
"No shit," Priss replied, heaps of sarcasm in her voice. "Where are you  
anyway?"  
"Trying to find a better angle and... I've just noticed that there are  
several more Boomers hiding in the area," Sylia reported offhandedly.  
"Oh, perfect." At least her cannon was undamaged. She also noticed that  
Twister hadn't moved or answered the Genom witch yet, the latter was getting  
impatient at this silent treatment.  
"Well? Do I have to prove that I can?" she heard the waiting Madagan say  
as the black and yellow suited woman slowly stepped down the slope of the  
pile of rubble. Twister, alias the Bullet at the moment, still hadn't said a  
word making Priss wonder what her friend was doing. Giving the rest of them  
time? It wasn't needed as her systems were as recovered as they were going to  
get.  
Wait a minute.  
"Hey, Linna, is it just me or is the witch coming too close to Twister  
for comfort?" Priss queried.  
"What are you talking about, Priss?" was Linna's distracted reply.  
"Don't you think she would want to stay a certain distance away?"  
True enough, as Priss had pointed out, Madagan hadn't stopped advancing  
on the Bullet. She was off the rubble and on the level street. What could be  
seen of her face suggested a person utterly fascinated with something: the  
Bullet, or rather, his visor.  
"Must be doing something. Right, Linna?" No response from her friend  
came, puzzling Priss. "Linna? Hey! LINNA!!"  
Her shout got the green-suited Knight Saber to wake from the trance she  
had started falling into. Linna shook her helmeted head to wake up a bit  
more. "Huh? What was that, Priss?"  
"I SAID Twister must be doing something psionic, and you were falling  
for it too so WAKE UP!!" Priss cranked up the volume to emphasize her last  
words.  
"OW! Not so loud!" Linna complained, snapping fully out of it.  
"Priss, Linna, get ready," Sylia's voice cut in. "I think someone's been  
monitoring the area because the Boomers I see may be getting ready to move.  
I'll take care of them, but there will likely be more."  
Sylia's words turned prophetic as three Boomers leaped over the pile to  
land behind Madagan. Four more, two for each side of the street, crashed  
through the walls of the constraining buildings. These four advanced on the  
Bullet's seated figure, apparently intent on grabbing him.  
"I don't think so, assholes! Come on, Linna!" Priss shouted and she  
fired her motoroid's hand cannon a split-second ahead of Linna's. Two of the  
Boomers around Twister were hit dead-on, rendering them dysfunctional. "Two  
down, five to go!" Priss crowed, but then saw the angry figure glowing yellow  
in front of the Bullet. The noise of the Boomers and their cannons had shaken  
Madagan out of whatever Twister had tried on her and she did NOT look very  
happy.  
"Oh, fuck," Priss swore with a sinking feeling.  
That sentiment was echoed by Twister as he regarded Madagan's glowing  
form. The addition of the Boomers wasn't helping his situation any, though  
the destruction of two helped.  
"You bastard...." Madagan ground out the word through clenched teeth.  
"What the HELL did you try to do to me?!?" Her fingers flexed and unflexed  
angrily.  
Twister dismounted off his bike, and while the Boomers tensed around  
him, they didn't do anything. "I have a trick I use to get people to avoid  
noticing me. I just tried the opposite, focusing on my eyes, hoping it would  
work so that I could get close enough to you to disable your suit.  
Unfortunately, you were distracted." He shrugged. "C'est la vie." Using his  
telekinesis he pushed his bike forcefully away from the soon-to-likely-be  
combat zone.  
Madagan was livid. "How DARE you take this...ME!...LIGHTLY!!"  
"Shouldn't I? Trust me, I've faced worse," Twister replied in an  
offhandish manner, "though not as fashionable. What is that style anyway?  
Early deep-sea?" he mockingly added. To himself he prayed that pissing her  
off would do more damage to the Boomers than to himself when they inevitably  
fought. He braced himself as he felt THREAT coming like it was digging him in  
the ribs.  
"DAMN YOU!!" Madagan screamed furiously and her suit glowed brightly.  
The area around the Bullet seemed to explode as a three-story column of fire  
erupted from the street. Both he and the two Boomers vanished in the flames.  
A Boomer behind Madagan protested at this. "But we were instructed to  
capture him at all costs! This...squark!" Madagan had moved her anger onto  
the doomed Boomer and it was quickly compacted into a volleyball.  
She quickly re-focused her attention as her recently acquired powers  
screamed danger; this was precognition though the scientists at Genom hadn't  
known about it. Once she realized she had it, Madagan decided it was a good  
thing to keep silent about. At Genom it was always wise to keep a few aces up  
your sleeve. The two Knight Sabers hadn't taken the apparent roasting of  
their friend too well; Linna was rushing at the ready Boomers while Priss  
fired the motoroid gun again... at the Genom exec. The glowing projectile  
tore though the air towards its target but never reached its prey. Psi power  
stopped its flight and quickly reversed it. Fortunately for Priss, Madagan  
was still new to her powers and the singer was able to frantically dodge her  
own weapon's projectile. Linna, much to her dismay, suddenly found herself  
unable to move herself when the amplified psionist turned her attention on  
the green Knight Saber.  
Madagan smiled unpleasantly at the fly she had just caught. "You should  
really find out more about what you attack, insect. It may be more than you  
can handle. Like finding that your heart has stopped." And with her TK, she  
reached out...  
Linna gasped from the sudden pain in her chest. It HURT!  
Then, from the smoking crater the pillar of fire left, a roar came  
amidst a sudden swirl of furious air.  
"HURRICANE BLAST!!"  
A horizontal torrent of atmosphere punched a hole through the smoke,  
gained strength as it tore up distance and street before it reached a  
surprised Madagan, hurling her backwards to crash into the pile of rubble.  
Smoke rising from him, the Blue Bullet walked out of the smoke.  
"I don't mind if you hurt me, well, actually I DO mind, but if you hurt  
my friends, you face me and my wrath next. DON'T think that unimportant," he  
emphasized grimly to the stunned Madagan, then turned to Linna. "You okay?"  
"Yes," Linna sighed with relief; when Twister had knocked out the cause  
of the pain her heart had begun beating again. "That scared me, though."  
"I don't doubt you."  
Priss flew the short distance to stand beside him. "Linna's okay, but  
what about you?" Linna caught the faint concerned tone in Priss' voice and  
actually looked at Twister's state. His biking outfit was singed all over and  
charred over the worse parts. The helmet, only slightly sooty, was the most  
intact article on his person. She didn't say anything but wondered how close  
he had come to being barbecued.  
Twister brushed ash off an arm. "Let's just say I'm not keen on  
repeating the experience and I feel like calling it a night. I'll take on my  
oh-so-humble-pie psycho-psi-sister if you want the leftover Boomers." He  
indicated the two remaining androids protecting the almost recovered Madagan,  
who didn't look too happy.  
"Gladly, but can you take her?" Priss asked.  
"Nothing's ever really certain buuuut...maybe."  
"You're a help."  
"You aim at Boomers and I aim to please," he chuckled a little and Priss  
could practically feel his grin, hidden as it currently was. "Ah, round two  
approaches."  
Indeed it was, for Madagan was walking towards the three with the two  
remaining Boomers flanking her, strangely calm after being blasted hard into  
the pile of rubble. Still mad, Twister suspected, but in control.  
"So, you finally decided to take this seriously, have you?" the purple-  
haired woman said. "Good."  
"Look, I'm not coming with you to Genom, Madagan. Just go home. Please?"  
"I can't do that. Either you come with me, or die."  
"The latter's more attractive than the former but I'm taking option  
three: kick your butt. Now THAT'S an amusing image." He looked over at Priss.  
"Don't you agree?" The singer in her hardsuit snorted loudly in agreement.  
Madagan frowned.  
"Very well! Then die!" Madagan started glowing again.  
Twister got ready. 

Chapter Eighteen  
\----------------- 

The scene was certainly odd; three against three but of a radical  
assortment of beings. On one side were two females in advanced combat suits  
with support mechs overtop who stood on either side of a male psionist whose  
features were hidden by a slightly charred motorcycle getup. The other group  
consisted of two androids of considerable destructive power who flanked a  
female psionist with boosted powers. Not a sight you normally see, even in  
Mega-Tokyo.  
Madagan stretched out her arms and her suit glowed once more, the  
Boomers crouched, preparing to attack. For a moment nothing happened, making  
Twister and the others wondering what Madagan was up to. They didn't wonder  
long. Suddenly, yellow lightning erupted out of the ground in front of the  
Genom exec, the deadly energy arced upwards then flashed down at the spot  
where the startled Twister stood.  
"OH SHIT!!" he shouted, and frantically leaped high and backwards,  
narrowly avoiding the electron stream that blasted his former position. His  
feet prickled as they had been closest to the near-hit.  
The two remaining Boomers ignored him as the two Knight Sabers were  
higher priority targets in their programming. Both managed to get Priss and  
Linna to the far sides of the street by tackling each one-to-one with their  
back jet-packs on full power, the purpose to get the two out of the way and  
not interfere with their Mistress. However, with both Sabers in their  
motoroids the androids were not going to last very long unless they were VERY  
lucky.  
Madagan, on the other hand, never got a chance to launch another  
lightning attack as Twister, eyes glowing blue through the helmet's visor and  
aura glowing brightly around himself, moved with TK-enhanced speed towards  
her. She barely managed to get arms and power ready to meet him and their  
hands clasped together with a small thunderclap. Blue and yellow psionic  
energies crackled and discharged between the two.  
"Nice trick you started out with. Ripped electrons from the ground? Not  
bad after such a short time psi-active," Twister managed to comment after  
they had struggled for a few seconds. Madagan's suit made her formidable, and  
he couldn't drag this on very long.  
Unfortunately, Twister had finally finished his new Crystal Knight suit,  
casting the spell upon the completed diamond armour early in the morning.  
Because of that powerful finishing spell, he was still tired and his  
available energy was fairly low. During the day he hadn't visibly shown this,  
even though Anri had asked if Darlene had lost some weight when they had  
opened the store. The purple-haired Genom exec couldn't have picked a better  
time, as he was tired and hadn't put on the amulet that was the armor.  
Madagan smiled, though with a bit of strain since she was in the middle  
of a fight. "I didn't need much time to learn enough to face you with this  
suit. My mind was already well trained and disciplined to handle my new  
abilities. You certainly don't seem much more experienced," she observed with  
a little contempt.  
"Hey, I've never had anybody to teach me," Twister defended himself  
indignantly. "And when I've fought I don't make much use of psi unless I have  
to."  
"Then you are a fool."  
"Or maybe I just like to fight fair. You needed that psi-amp on your  
back to fight me on even footing so don't complain...wimp."  
Her lips compressed in anger. Madagan was about to push harder when he  
beat her to it in a strange manner. Instead of attacking her, Twister yanked  
his hands from Madagan's, surprising and unbalancing her, and directed the  
forces he had used, and was a little unsure of himself, towards the female  
executive to the ground below her feet.  
Road exploded, flinging him backwards and Madagan high into the air.  
Disoriented, even as she protected herself instinctively, she flew through  
the air.  
And was intercepted in mid-arc by another flying figure that swung a  
blade at her semi-helpless form: Sylia in her hardsuit. Back after finally  
finishing off the Boomers she had found. The leader of the Knight Sabers  
quite deliberately launched her blade into the equipment on Madagan's back.  
If she had attempted to strike the psionist herself the attempt would have  
failed because of Madagan's precognition, but as this did not endanger her  
life the attack worked. Sparks and minor electrical discharges appeared  
around the blade as Sylia pulled it out of the now-dark suit. Madagan  
screamed in rage as she sensed her advantage taken away. The white-suited  
Knight Saber attempted to catch her but missed as Madagan had stopped flying  
through the air and was now hovering.  
A little surprised Sylia landed as Madagan shouted angrily, "LET ME  
DOWN!!"  
"Certainly," Twister said, picking himself off the ground, revealing to  
all that he was the one supporting Madagan. Priss and Linna relaxed and  
dropped the weapons that they had been aiming at the furious Genom exec. "But  
don't expect a warm welcome. Oh yes, I destroyed the devices spying on us  
when your new Boomers appeared. Surprised you missed it," he said, adding  
insult to injury.  
Madagan's face paled as she realized that she was in a terribly bad  
position to be demanding anything. When she reached ground, she wasn't  
released from the hold the Blue Bullet had on her and could feel she wasn't  
going to be able to free herself. She was not strong enough now without the  
suit.  
"What do we do with her?" Linna's chill voice frightened her. She had  
not been nice with the green Knight Saber.  
"Want me to make the call?" the Bullet inquired of the white-suited  
Saber.  
"As long as you do it quick."  
"Gotcha." He walked up to the standing, immobile Madagan and sighed.  
"Are you going to kill me?" Whatever he did she was determined to not  
show fear. Nevertheless, when he shook his helmeted head she relaxed  
slightly.  
"No. I haven't killed a human being and even after you tried to do kill  
me it wouldn't be right. Besides, Genom might be less interested in me if  
you're still around to satisfy their curiosity in psi."  
"Is that wise?" Sylia said, concerned. "Genom seems to have done quite  
a bit of research already, she may accelerate that."  
"Oh, I'll put them in reverse." His slightly mischievous tone raised her  
eyebrows. Then he turned away from the helpless Madagan, which seemed odd to  
the captive, before he continued. "And as for you, Madagan, I have to take  
away your toy."  
This confused her. "What?" Then she heard ripping sounds, and felt...  
Twister heard a very startled, outraged, feminine scream behind him as  
he used his TK and had to grin. He then brought the outfit and equipment he  
had taken off Madagan in front of himself and wadded it into a fairly tight  
ball. "Could you take this stuff, Sabers?"  
"Oh, gladly," Linna's mirthful voice replied and the green motoroid with  
her inside picked it up. Priss was howling with laughter.  
"You...you...you..." he heard Madagan sputter behind him.  
"I'm sure you'll find something to cover yourself before a Genom crew  
gets here, Madagan. Me, I've got some things to settle with ADPolice  
tonight."  
"I'll make you suffer for this," was her coldly furious reply.  
"Advice: Don't try." He waved behind himself as he walked away for his  
bike. "Ta."  
The Knight Sabers walked away with him. "That was a...practical way of  
getting her suit," Sylia remarked dryly.  
"It was perfect!" Priss chortled.  
"It WAS the fastest way." Twister shrugged, unrepentant.  
"And so modest, Bullet," Priss teased. "Turning away like that from an  
attractive woman."  
Twister reached his bike, managed it up, and got on before answering the  
singer. "If you think of her like that maybe I could find a bow and gift wrap  
her for you. For those cold, lonely nights in bed, of course," he added  
helpfully as Priss sputtered indignantly.  
"She's holding a very big gun, Bullet, you'd better go quickly," Linna  
laughed.  
"Right." He revved the engine. "I'll release Madagan now so you'd better  
go. Oh yeah, whatever you hear from my next encounter with ADPolice: don't  
believe it. I'm going to play escape artist, but not let ADPolice in on it.  
Especially if they try the same thing on me as they did to the Griffin. In  
fact, I'm counting on it. Oh, don't forget, Priss," he added, "if Madagan  
tries again: maybe next time, oh mighty amazon. And if you spank her she may  
actually behave. Or if you prefer, she'll spank you." Seeing the blue  
motoroid cannon begin rising he quickly waved to them and tore off down the  
street.  
"He's going to pay for that," Priss ominously said.  
"Time to go back to base," Sylia ordered, ignoring Linna's laughter,  
"and we'd better move quickly."  
Slightly surprised, Priss and Linna looked at each other, then both  
turned to their friend and leader. "Why, Sylia?" Linna spoke for both.  
"Something else may come up tonight and we'd best be ready," Sylia  
replied mysteriously and all the way back home that was all either of them  
could get out of her. 

"You want to WHAT?!?" Leon stared at the radio incredulously.  
"You heard me! If it worked that time then it'll work now! What's wrong  
with that!?" Potter demanded. "We'll heard him onto that street and block the  
entrance with patrol cars. The armoured tank you used last time is already in  
position at the end. I don't want anymore comments from you, Leon. Just. Be.  
There." And with that, he cut the transmission.  
"Idiot!" Leon swore furiously. His car was already approaching the spot  
Potter wanted him to be and the jerk hadn't even bothered checking Leon's  
position. They had temporarily lost the Bullet but suspected he was headed  
towards the street Potter expected him to take. Leon, however, had almost  
lost all the humour he had felt at the beginning of this fiasco. The amount  
of cars taken out or damaged so far was worse than the Griffin affair; a  
testament to the skill of the Bullet and the overzealous actions of Potter.  
Those Boomers turning up hadn't helped, but they had vanished as mysteriously  
as they had appeared. Strange that.  
Just then, something in his rear view mirror caught his attention,  
something fast. Before he had a chance to recognize it, it had gone into the  
next lane and slowed down enough to stay parallel to him. The Blue Bullet!  
And he was jauntily waving at Leon.  
Cheeky bugger, to do that, was his amused thought. The silver windows  
that reflected lasers made his grin impossible for the biker to see. He  
almost didn't turn on the radio to report this, but duty compelled him. "Hey,  
Potter. The target is keeping parallel to me and appears to be having a fun  
time."  
"What?! The better not be a joke, Leon!" said Potter angrily.  
"No joke. I'm turning onto the street you wanted and he's staying right  
with me. Maybe he wants to surrender."  
"That's impossible!"  
"I'm going to check it out. See ya." He reached for the turn off switch.  
"Wait! Don't you..." Potter voice died with pleasing suddenness.  
Leon slowly applied the brake and the Bullet decelerated to match. They  
quickly came to a stop as Leon guessed that his companion was staying with  
him. The Bullet, a few meters ahead and watching him, made no move. Sighing,  
Leon checked his gun, just in case, and opened the door to get out, standing  
behind it. For some reason the Bullet looked surprised, at least that what  
Leon thought from the body language.  
"Leon...McNichol. This is a surprise," spoke the Bullet.  
In his turn, Leon was amazed the biker knew him, or a least well enough  
to recognize him on sight. "You know who I..."  
"I have my methods," interrupted the blue biker. "Doesn't matter. I'm  
glad it's you with whom I speak with last."  
"Last?" echoed Leon, a sense of dread coming over him. He began lifting  
his revolver which was hidden from the Bullet's sight behind the car door.  
"Yes." The Bullet dismounted and faced Leon. "You see, when I heard  
about the Griffin I felt a great sense of wanting to be as famous as that car  
of the night. And so, I built this bike with all of my hidden talents and  
love to achieve the same blaze of glory. Tonight," he added dramatically,  
"will be my final and greatest performance."  
This guy is NUTS! thought Leon incredulously and acted. He whipped his  
gun up and assumed a firing position behind the car door. "Your act's been  
cancelled, buddy, so just stay where you are. Besides, you'd never get past  
the tank at the barricade up ahead."  
The Bullet acted like he was happy about that. "Really? Could you tell  
them to leave the area then?" Swiftly, the Bullet re-mounted.  
"Stop where you are or I'll shoot!" Leon ordered.  
Turning to talk to him, the Bullet added, "I'm going to make quite a  
bang. Bye-bye." Then he pushed an empty hand at Leon.  
A stunning force knocked the gun out of Leon's hands as he himself was  
knocked over. As he recovered he heard two sounds, the Bullet driving off and  
more ADPolice cars finally reaching his position from the same direction he  
and the Bullet had come from. What the hell did he hit me with? Shaking his  
head, Leon stood, recovering his gun in the process, to greet the arriving  
police vehicles. Then he turned on his radio again.  
"Potter, he's coming your way and I think you'd better get out. Now."  
"Don't you dare turn off your receiver again and what the hell are you  
talking about?!" demanded Potter.  
"He may have a bomb."  
"And he TOLD you this? Are you a complete idiot??" Potter demanded.  
"It's an obvious ploy so he can escape."  
"Dammit, Potter! This guy is crazy! He told me all..." Leon stopped when  
another voice cut in.  
"This is chopper three and I have a visual on the target. He's going  
around 225 km/h and climbing. Around mid-way point. Wait...something is..."  
the pilot paused, then grew confused, "What the hell is going on?!"  
"Get the visual!" Leon heard Potter demand. There was a few moments of  
silence as Potter's team at the blockade looked at the feed they were  
getting. Then...  
"He's on fire??" an officer Leon didn't know said disbelievingly.  
"BLUE flames?!" another cried.  
"Dear GOD, it's getting bigger!!"  
"He's not burning! It's fake!" Potter shouted angrily.  
"The road's MELTING BEHIND HIM, Potter!" the first officer retorted.  
"I can't even see him anymore!!"  
On fire? Leon wondered. Melting?  
"This is chopper three! I can't keep up!" The pilot's voice was  
beginning to reveal his panic. "Whatever it is, I recommend YOU GET OUT OF  
THERE!!"  
"GET OUT, POTTER!!" Leon yelled.  
"EVERYBODY, EVACUATE!!!" Potter's scream blasted the speaker; Leon hoped  
it was in time.  
Thirty seconds later, Leon saw a blue glow, then a dazzling white light  
where he imagined the barricade had been. 

Twister appeared in his hanger-sized room about three feet above the  
ground, the engine of the bike roaring before quickly dying.  
I hope that worked, he thought. He let the bike down to the ground and  
got off, sighing with relief. Would have been interesting if someone had  
stuck around, good thing nobody did. Somehow, I doubt ADPolice will think the  
Blue Bullet survived. Twister stretched, then headed to his computer area,  
remembering why he had done it and how.  
He couldn't use his Blue Bullet persona anymore. Events tonight had  
shown that all too well and he had built the bike to relax, not to be the  
object of a manhunt.  
Spoilsports.  
He heaved a sigh. God, he was tired.  
He had used the one enchantment that he had recently put on his bike.  
Something he had dreamed up while finishing his new armour. As he had  
accelerated past 220, the spell had started absorbing the engine's heat to  
form a type of fireball around him and the bike, storing the energy.  
Increased by his own TK, done by trying to heat up his own engine, the  
fireball had gotten hot enough to melt through almost any obstacle. When he  
had teleported, just as the front tire was about at the point where the tank  
wall had melted away, all that was released, mostly straight up and down.  
Mostly.  
Must've left a pretty big hole, he mentally chuckled while walking into  
his computer room. Then he noticed something on his screen, and swore.  
He had 'visited' ADPolice by computer a few days ago and had set up a  
flag that his supercomputer could monitor safely.  
The flag had activated exactly one minute ago.  
Arrgggghhh!! Did he HAVE to attack right NOW?!?! Damn. Twister took off  
his helmet and then lifted something unseen but felt off of the table the  
terminal rested on. His fingers traced the invisible object, contemplated the  
other two events that had already happened that night, and sighed wryly.  
Third time's the charm. But for whom?  
And here he had hoped he could munch on something before this. 

Chapter Nineteen  
\--------------- 

Ten minutes before- 

"Sylia!" Nene cried sobbingly into the vid-phone she immediately used  
when she saw no one was finally around and the elegant leader of the Knight  
Sabers answered.  
Sylia was a little startled at Nene's tearful state. "Nene, what...?"  
"Darlene's dead!" the young red-head cried, using Twister's female name  
as she usually did. "I just heard a few minutes ago! Some kind of explosion  
and there's nothing left! Nothing!"  
Sylia sighed, she should have called earlier. "No, Nene."  
"N-no?" Nene blinked her teary eyes in confusion.  
"Aside from the fact that our friend can be...elsewhere when desired, I  
believe whatever has you so upset was planned for ADPolice benefit."  
"Elsewhere...? Oh! I forgot!" Nene's face reddened with embarrassment.  
"But why do it at all??" she demanded, wiping tears off her face angrily.  
"My guess would be to make it seem as if the 'Bullet' was killed. And  
succeeded, I assume, by your reaction," Sylia concluded wryly. "I doubt there  
will be much of an investigation and/or search for him now."  
"Could've told ME before doing it," Nene mumbled, slightly annoyed.  
"Well, he did say he was planning something after the battle."  
"Battle? WHAT battle?!" Nene was beginning to feel like she was missing  
a lot tonight.  
Smiling slightly, Sylia shook her head. "Best not to say anything now.  
I'll fill you in later."  
Despite her impatience, Nene released her breath in a faintly annoyed  
"Alright." Then she heard a boom and felt the floor shake; something normally  
not done by floors as a rule. "What was that?!" she exclaimed, looking  
around.  
"What's happening, Nene?" Sylia asked, concern on her face.  
"Don't know! Gonna check it out." Nene reached to hang up the phone.  
"Ne..." was all Sylia got out before the connection died. Quickly, she  
stood up and hurried out of the room to get the others ready as Priss and  
Linna had stayed at Sylia's request. The new suits were ready, and it was  
time to use them.  
It looked like what she had suspected was happening now, at ADPolice  
headquarters.

The black Boomer with several spikes on its shoulder pads that was now  
guarding the roof of ADPolice headquarters saw the two police helicopters  
approaching. Its AI designated them as hostile and to be destroyed; the  
Boomer's creator did not wish anybody else landing on the roof. The target  
lock for the two airborne vehicles was swiftly made and the mouth laser began  
glowing blue, about to fire.  
It fired... and missed.  
Reason?  
Something unseen had hit the cyberdroid in the torso just in time,  
making it stagger backwards before steadying itself. The two choppers thought  
the missed beam was a warning shot and were turned away by a concerned Daley  
who had seen it. With the choppers out of the way that left the Boomer's full  
attention for whatever had hit it.  
"Well, FANCY meeting you here, Mr. Spikey Boomer!" something said to the  
android.  
Someone black and armoured appeared near the edge of the roof;  
apparently the one who had hit it. The Boomer's ID software came up with a  
match: the Crystal Knight. However, some changes in the Knight's armour had  
given a few microseconds difficulty in making his identity known to the  
biotechnical terror.  
Most areas of the black inflexible plate potions of the armour now had  
faint silvery designs, very visible against the light absorbing armour. The  
visor was still undecorated, but now the lower portion of the helmet covering  
the lower face was pushed outward slightly. This was not the only addition.  
There were two raised strips on the chestplate running diagonally from around  
the shoulder areas to the bottom of the rib cage where the diaphragm was;  
they weren't very thick and did not join. The only other major change to the  
slightly different armour were additional rounded and streamlined forearm  
projections that tapered off into the armour near the elbow and contained  
large holes on the other higher end near the hands, obviously some kind of  
new weaponry.  
Despite the difference, the Boomer had recognized its new opponent.  
However, the Knight's arrival had been prepared for by its Master and it was  
programmed to wait. This was not what the Knight expected, and after ten  
seconds of nothing happening, tried goading it.  
"Hel-LO! Ah...yo? Machine o' death and mayhem?" Nothing. "Pardon me, but  
you attack ADPolice choppers and ignore me? Yaright. Blow a circuit?"  
Something occurred to the dark armoured figure, and he slowly said, "Or...  
are... you... waiting... for..."  
"HAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! So! You finally realized I expected you, Crystal  
Knight!" shouted a voice from the previously ignored chopper on the roof,  
confident in its superiority.  
The Knight turned to face Dr. Miriam. "Oh yeah, I'm just thrilled to  
meet a mad scientist and his Boomer Babies. I don't suppose you care to  
surrender?" He said this in a manner that showed he didn't think that very  
likely. Twister saw the fury grow on the mad doctor's face and got ready for  
him to order the Boomer to attack.  
The doctor had other ideas. "They are not BABIES!! They are my  
MASTERPIECES to destroy the Knight Sabers! YOU are not fit to face them and,"  
he reached one hand into the helicopter and made a sudden movement, "if the  
information I received is correct, you will be of much better use to me as  
valuable research material." He laughed a little maniacally.  
"What the heck are you... AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!" White-hot  
railroad spikes lanced into Twister's brain for an instant, making the rest  
of the world forgotten in the moment of pure white agony. It vanished even as  
he raised his hands to his head, but the after-effects left him reeling and  
he staggered, almost going unconscious from the sudden lack of pain. 

Elsewhere, on route to Genom tower, a seething Madagan, wearing a large  
coat to cover her, suddenly widened her eyes in shock, then doubled over when  
the pain registered.  
Fortunately, being less sensitive she felt the pain less. Even still,  
her driver and bodyguard Boomers reacted with concern, but she waved them off  
thinking it was a result of her earlier battle.  
Not so. 

"Wonderful! So you DO have mental powers!" Miriam gloated as he saw the  
Crystal Knight recover slightly from what he had done.  
"What...the HECK...was that?!" Twister managed through his headache, he  
tried to Heal it but whatever had happened seemed to have somehow inhibited  
his psionic powers temporarily. He realized that this was a Very Bad Thing.  
"I'm told it was an experimental device operating on the theory that it  
would disrupt a person's psi ability if they had any. Since each human being  
has an unique personal 'wavelength' it has to cycle through a broad range."  
Dr. Miriam smiled unpleasantly. "It seems you're very gifted. All the  
better."  
The Knight shook his head and took a deep breath to steady himself.  
"Yeah, right!" He leaped for the chopper to destroy the device.  
It was a measure of how rattled Twister was to have neglected to  
consider the very dangerous Boomer still on the roof. When it leaped to  
prevent him from harming the doctor, he was still unable to use his psionics  
and his attempt to do so allowed the Boomer to launch a fist that landed on  
his torso. The Knight flew back to the edge of the roof, landing hard.  
Groaning, and with one hand over his stomach, Twister got on his knees  
to try to get up. He relied a lot on speed to avoid damage from Boomers, and  
when unable to avoid getting hit resorting to psi. He wasn't feeling very  
fast at the moment, was currently without psi, and this one had hit HARD.  
Luckily the new suit had a weak force field around it; along with a bunch of  
other options. He cupped his right hand as the Boomer advanced on him and  
softly said, "C-Sphere."  
Stored energy in his suit created a restraining globe of force, within  
which air was superheated into plasma that strained to escape from the  
constraining sphere. It left a faint comet-like trail when Twister threw it  
hard at the enemy machine.  
Not being a rocket, beam weapon, or something else familiar to the  
Boomer the machine hesitated briefly, allowing the potent ball of energy to  
hit and explode with a fiery blast. It threw the android violently back with  
its front armour melted slightly, unfortunately with no real damage.  
"Tit for tat," Twister chuckled nonetheless. Suddenly, the pain came  
again. "AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!" he screamed.  
"For doing that to my creation I'm overjoyed the machine's cycle has  
come back to your wavelength again!" Dr. Miriam angrily shook his fist at the  
black crystalline-armoured annoyance.  
The doctor would soon be his own audience as Twister didn't think he was  
going to be able to keep himself conscious. He had been tired to begin with  
and this hadn't helped. Whatever that thing was doing, the effect seemed to  
have doubled because of the previous time. This was comprehended through a  
foggy maze of pain, as well as the fact that the Boomer would be able to have  
him for lunch now that he was in no way able to fight. Twister couldn't be  
captured by this madman, who knew what he would do to him? But escape seemed  
difficult now.  
One chance. And it promised to be painful.  
"Once more, with feeling," he groggily whispered. "C-Sphere." The ball  
formed as the angry Boomer rushed at him once more, but he didn't throw it at  
the android. He threw it to the ground in front of himself.  
Two feet away.  
The blast blew him backwards and beyond the edge of the roof.  
This has definitely not been a good night for me, was Twister's last  
fleeting thought before darkness rushed in.  
Dr. Miriam wasn't angry; his Boomer hadn't been damaged enough to matter  
and the Crystal Knight's last move was that of a desperate man. The Knight  
Sabers were his real objective tonight anyway, the Knight he could deal with  
later.  
"Forget him," he commanded his Boomer, his masterpiece. "Go into the  
building and destroy everything until the Knight Sabers arrive."  
As the cyberdroid started towards the door, Dr. Miriam returned to his  
helicopter to continue monitoring the progress of the building.  
"Soon, Knight Sabers. Soon you will be no more, proving my greatness!"  
he laughed insanely.  
A half hour later, all four Boomers were destroyed.  
So much for greatness. 

Mackie left to get the van ready, thrilled by the action but also  
relieved it was over. The rest of the Sabers would have left with him except  
that Priss insisted she had seen the Crystal Knight and they had gone to  
investigate before coming home.  
It had been a busy night. Sylia had told him to bring his suit so he  
could carry Nene's suit to give the red-head once inside. He and Priss had  
found her confronting a new type of combat Boomer! Priss threw herself onto  
the cyberdroid while he and Nene got away. The red-head had been unusually  
serious at the time, and had immediately suited up before they went to the  
control room. Once there, the two had found that a Boomer had infiltrated the  
computer systems. He helped her fight it, but it had been a sophisticated  
program to deal with, and when Nene's friend Lisa became a target the red-  
head had had to frantically counter all the death traps the Boomer kept  
trying to use on the girl. But Lisa finally made it to where they were, and  
Mackie was relieved to see the others arrive after beating their Boomers.  
Then the fourth had activated the building's self-destruct system, and the  
others took Lisa away but he and Nene stayed behind to save ADPolice. It had  
come pretty close at the end; Nene had overridden the fourth Boomer's self-  
destruct just in time and blew up the Boomer. He smiled, remembering Nene's  
gasp of relief when they had succeeded, then her smile when she saw the  
others had come back.  
As he headed for the van, the young man considered the mech he had built  
himself and decided it needed a lot more work, maybe even a complete  
redesign. It wasn't because of poor efficiency.  
It just didn't look cool enough for him now.

Chapter Twenty  
\-------------- 

"I told you I thought it was him! Hey, sleepy head," called a voice that  
penetrated the darkness of oblivion. "Hey! Wake up! C'mon, you dope!"  
Recognition flared. So did pain. "Shut up and let me die in peace,  
Priss," Twister groaned without opening his eyes. He felt bruised and tired.  
The bruises he tried to Heal, and thankfully it worked. Whatever the crazy  
doctor had used didn't last long.  
"He's alive," Linna sighed with relief.  
A hard blow to the stomach surprised him, producing a grunt, and a  
startled Twister opened his eyes. All the Knight Sabers in new-looking suits  
were standing around him, or rather around the Twister-shaped hole he was  
currently lying in. The pink hardsuit had been the one to stomp on his lower  
torso and the foot still rested there.  
"What was that for?" Twister demanded, beginning to try to rise from the  
hole. Nene moved her foot away as he slowly got up.  
"Not warning me beforehand about what you did with ADPolice! I was  
worried!" Nene angrily told him. "And for worrying me AGAIN when I saw you  
here!"  
"What happened?" inquired Sylia.  
"Crazy doctor used some strange device on me that disabled my psionics  
and it knocked me almost into unconsciousness. I blew myself off the roof to  
escape." Twister levered himself out of his hole and tried using his powers  
again when his head pulsed with pain from a killer headache. He sagged a  
little in relief when he found he was able to Heal a second time and the  
killer headache disappeared.  
"BLEW YOURSELF OFF?!?!" chorused Nene, Linna, and Priss incredulously.  
"Even Priss isn't that dumb!" said a startled Nene.  
"HEY!!"  
Hiding her amusement as Nene and Priss started arguing, Sylia asked,  
"How did you slow your fall and survive if you couldn't use psionics?"  
"Air brakes, heh heh heh," Twister said in an Ernest sort of way, and  
chuckled at the assorted groans. "Added feature of the new suit, just in  
case. I'm not fond of falling."  
"Nice. Getting decorative?" Linna said, pointing at the designs on the  
black plate.  
"It needed it. You four have upgraded as well I see."  
"What else does it do?" asked Priss, curiously.  
"Later. Where's that doctor?"  
"ADPolice caught him. They'll be here soon," said Sylia.  
Twister straightened at the news. "I'm going to destroy that thing he  
had and ask where he got it from. Thanks for worrying about me, but I'd  
better hurry. See you later!" Before anyone could protest, he vanished.  
"Chee! Thinks he can do everything," Priss grumbled.  
Sylia shook her head. "It's best he does it now before ADPolice get  
their hands on that device."  
"How's that headache you got, Sylia?" Linna queried.  
"Fine. We'd better go; it's been a busy night." Sylia turned and started  
walking away. The rest followed, except for one.  
Linna turned when she noticed.  
"Priss?" 

With a grin on his face, Daley watched the helicopter belonging to the  
terrorist who had taken over ADPolice headquarters land on the street. When  
the blades had stopped moving the door opened and a cheerful Leon holding the  
collar of a sullen Dr. Miriam stepped down the stairs with the prisoner.  
"So, finally decided to join us, eh, Leon?" Daley cheerily said.  
"You could say that. Been a busy night for both of us." Leon grinned.  
"Well, you got my character; how did you handle yours?"  
Leon shrugged. "Not mine. Potter's. And that didn't go as well as this  
did."  
"Now THAT'S debatable. Headquarters is a mess right now," Daley ruefully  
said, then added, "I did hear some reports. Did the guy really kill himself?"  
Leon nodded. "Looks like it. I talked to him before he did it and he  
sounded like a real loon. Took out a large chunk of bridge doing it." The  
brown-haired inspector shook his head at the waste. Then he spotted Lisa, the  
captain's niece, passing by, looking slightly distracted. "Hey, Lisa!"  
Lisa had been deep in her own thoughts, thinking about what had happened  
in the building with her and Nene, who was a Knight Saber! Surprised at  
hearding her name called, Lisa looked up and saw the trio over by the  
chopper, then looked down at the camera in her hands and smiled. She raised  
it into position and took a picture while the two ADPolicemen posed. Lisa  
lowered it to say, "Thanks!", but she noticed the three were all staring at  
something behind her. Whirling around, she saw the object of their  
attentions.  
Walking in a straight line towards the chopper, through startled people  
that avoided him, was the Crystal Knight. Despite the change of the new  
armour compared to the old, he was quickly recognized by Lisa. ADPolice did  
too, but those gathered around weren't sure of what to do as the reason for  
the Knight's visit was unknown. He stopped right beside Lisa and looked down  
at her.  
"Hello again," he greeted her. "As you can see, I'm wearing my armour  
this time."  
"So it WAS you!" Lisa gasped, remembering when they had literally bumped  
into each other on that roof. "What are you doing here?"  
His answer was directed at the frowning captive. "To get a few answers  
out of Dr. Miriam here."  
"Hold it!" Leon called out before the doctor could speak. "He's a  
prisoner of ADPolice and, despite the help you've given in the past, you're  
still a vigilante."  
"Oh, come off it, Leon," the Knight said, disgusted. "All I need are a  
few answers and something in that aircraft of his," the Knight calmly said.  
"Why don't you use your psi-powers or are they still unavailable?" Dr.  
Miriam queried maliciously.  
Blinking, Leon and Daley looked down at their captive in confusion.  
"What the hell are you talking about?" Leon demanded.  
"Shut up, Miriam," the Knight demanded and one of his characteristic  
crystal swords appeared in a hand. He advanced.  
"Stop right there, Knight," Leon commanded the black plated and silvery  
design-covered figure. "He's still our prisoner."  
Meanwhile, Miriam was unimpressed with the Knight's display. "Looks like  
you've recovered if you're using telekinesis. What will you use next?  
Telepathy?" Suddenly, he smiled unpleasantly. "I see no need to continue this  
idiotic farce anymore."  
Puzzled and confused at the confidence in Miriam's voice, Twister  
hesitated, wondering what was going on with the doctor's attitude change.  
The answer came terribly quickly.  
Lancing pain erupted in his mind for the third time that night and his  
sword shattered into vanishing motes of sparkling dust. "AAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!"  
he screamed, falling to his knees and hands. Everyone except Miriam was  
shocked at the agony the scream described even with the distortion the suit  
normally applied to his voice. Dazed, Twister heard Leon react.  
"What the hell?" Leon said, surprised at what had happened.  
Instinctively he realized the cause and shook his captive. "What did you do,  
asshole?"  
For an answer, Miriam moved his arms surprisingly quickly and grabbed  
Leon and Daley. Then, with strength that was definitely NOT normal, he hurled  
them both away, sprawling, in different directions.  
Someone in the crowd of police cried out, "Android!!" Weapons were  
raised.  
"Stop!!" The android of Dr. Miriam commanded. "Fire and I will trigger  
the explosives hidden in the helicopter and destroy most of the surrounding  
area, including yourselves." Understandably, the police hesitated, making the  
doppleganger grin as it walked over to the gasping Knight.  
So much for staying true with the anime version, Twister berated  
himself, mostly for not scanning with his senses and discovering about the  
fake.  
"That you were fooled by my deception is no surprise," the mechanical  
clone gloated, then frowned. "But that was not my goal. Those new suits were  
an unknown. An unknown I shall be ready for next time." Something landing  
behind it made it turn around, and then glare at the new arrival with  
simulated hate.  
It was a blue hardsuit. No surprise there.  
"Hey, you damn machine, how about taking me on?" Priss taunted, one arm  
raised in firing position.  
"And can you be sure I can't detonate the copter before you destroy me?"  
the android of Miriam retorted.  
The blue suited Knight Saber hesitated.  
Twister had seen enough. If the cycle on the damned machine was still  
running he would be hit hard again and likely fall unconscious. The head. The  
head had to be completely destroyed and the android was not likely to be  
armoured. His armour's other weapons were still mostly untried and the way he  
was feeling he doubted he could aim them properly. Suit - out. Psi - out. But  
there WAS one thing he could use...  
"Well? What will you do? Or should I detonate it right now?" the android  
mocked.  
"Bastard machine..." Priss' arm wavered, then firmed for some unknown  
reason. When she spoke next, it sounded like she was smiling as she said,  
"You know what I'll do?"  
The android's brows furrowed; this was strange behaviour for a human.  
"I think I'll watch."  
"What?!?"  
"MOUKO TAKABISHA!!!" cried the Crystal Knight from behind the android  
and before the machine could do anything the ki power Twister had gathered  
between his hands was unleashed in as powerful a blast was he could make it  
at the moment, aimed right at the copy's head and upper body. The force of  
the almost point-blank ki blast slammed into the android and the metal head  
was blown apart into a million pieces, thrown up into the sky along with most  
of the upper torso. Headless, what was left of the body fell to the ground.  
Priss lowered her arm and watched Twister sigh with relief. "Was that  
another one of those weird moves?"  
"Yeah," he tiredly answered, standing up slowly. "As much ki as I could  
manage that quickly and narrowly anyhow." He'd have to thank Ranma again for  
teaching that move to him.  
"I like it."  
The Knight snorted audibly in amusement. "Surprise there. You'd better  
get going," he added seeing the police force around them start to lose their  
hesitation. "And thanks; I owe you one."  
"And you sound like you're dead on your feet," she retorted. "Don't  
worry, I'll collect eventually," Priss answered him in a devilish tone.  
"Maybe when I get you back for those comments earlier." And then she  
activated her jumping jets, swiftly leaping away.  
"Oh, joy," Twister muttered. "Why do I feel this sinking sensation?"  
"Hey, Knight!"  
Startled, the armoured psionist looked at the helicopter and saw Leon  
waving at him. Remembering about the device that had disabled him, he rapidly  
strode over to the ADPolice officer. Twister noticed some people moving  
around inside the chopper that must have ran inside right after the Miriam  
android was destroyed.  
Leon saw his glance and nodded inside. "Bomb squad. That thing was right  
about the explosives."  
"Great. Thought that it was going to blow it up anyway so I took it  
out." The Knight shrugged. "Sorry, us vigilantes can be mean." He tried  
Healing the headache he had and got a faint response, lessening the pain  
slightly. It appeared the device's effects didn't last very long past one of  
its cycles.  
The lieutenant gave him a wry look. "I noticed. You do realize that the  
only reason I'm not ordering your arrest right now is that I don't think I  
could stop you from getting away. True?" He chuckled at the Knight's helmet  
looking innocently up at the sky. "I'll let somebody else tackle that job,  
thank you very much."  
"Hey, Leon," Daley called from inside the copter. "I think I've got some  
really strange piece of equipment here. We had to disconnect it before we  
could get to the explosives."  
A strong sense of danger began building in Twister halfway through  
Daley's message. "Oh, SHOOT!!" Twister cried, and before anybody could stop  
him, rushed inside the helicopter and came out immediately with a large metal  
box that had a few lights, displays, and wires hanging from it. With all his  
might and recovering telekinetic power he threw the box into the air. He  
stood rigid as he kept accelerating the box upwards with his mind as much as  
he could until....  
BOOOOOOM!!!  
A large explosion safely far above them marked the end of the device  
that had given him so much trouble.  
"I'm getting REALLY annoyed at this Miriam character," Daley stated as  
he looked up at the fading explosion from the door of the helicopter.  
"Better make sure of the android's body as well," said the Knight and he  
turned to the remains. Holding his two hands together straight out in front  
of him and all fingers pointing at the target, Twister said, "Laser Lance."  
Ten small laser beams leaped from each of the black fingertips and  
merged into a powerful, single one where a glowing torus had appeared a  
hand's span from the closest fingertip. With deliberate precision, Twister  
sliced apart the lifeless form of the android into harmless chunks of metal.  
He noticed his armour beginning to get heavier so he was relieved that he had  
finished in time and stopped the beam; the armour started losing weight again  
as it gathered ambient light to recover from the power loss.  
"New armour's more powerful I see," Leon commented, a tinge of envy and  
frustration in his voice.  
"Yeah, and I'd better get cloaking. Good-bye." With that last word, the  
Knight vanished, startling many ADPolice who had been watching him. "Oh,  
yeah," his disembodied voice called. "Thanks, guys! And I won't destroy your  
pictures, Lisa," the Knight added with a chuckle, making the young  
photographer start, then flush with embarrassment. The young girl thought  
that it was lucky for him that she was leaving tomorrow or else she'd REALLY  
work on finding out who the Knight was!  
"Why is it that everybody else in this crazy city has better equipment  
than us?" Leon asked the empty air.  
"They don't have to worry about boards and politicians," Daley answered  
with a sigh, coming up beside him.  
Leon echoed him and leaned on the helicopter. "I wish we had better  
stuff."  
"Be careful what you wish for, Leon," whispered the Knight's voice,  
right by his ear.  
"HOLY!!" The ADPolice lieutenant jerked away, caught totally off-guard  
and surprising Daley.  
"Leon?!? What's wrong??"  
"He... I..." Leon waved haltingly at empty air for a few seconds before  
sighing in defeat. "Never mind. Let's get this mess cleaned up."  
"Riiight." Daley still looked at his partner strangely as he walked  
away.  
Levitating ten feet above Leon, Twister quietly laughed.  
Only one thing left to do today, then I think I'll collapse into sleep.  
What a day. He sighed. I never even got a spare moment to think about what  
Sylia told me. Tomorrow then; I'm too wasted now.  
He teleported home for some much needed sleep. 

Doctor Miriam angrily slammed his fist on the monitor screen that had  
been receiving his duplicate's visual transmissions and cracked it slightly.  
"No!! How could they have ALL been defeated?!?" he demanded.  
Yanda calmly looked at him. "It appeared that the Knight Sabers suits  
had been upgraded since the last time you collected data on them. You did not  
account for that, and so they were destroyed. You had better luck with the  
Knight but he was the one who destroyed your copy with one of his UPGRADED  
suit's weapons."  
Still furious, Miriam could not deny the ring of truth in her words. She  
was right, he'd neglected the possibility of upgrades and that had been the  
flaw in his plan. He was suddenly glad the woman had insisted on moving out  
of his factory and moving to a safer locale; it HAD been his face on the  
double and no doubt ADPolice, and worse, Genom, would be looking for him. But  
even with his current safety, he was dissatisfied.  
"Where did you get that device that took care of the Knight's psi  
power?" he asked, that had been the lure Yanda had used to get him to accept  
substituting a double for him. The possibilities for such power was ENORMOUS!  
IF he could use them himself, which the woman had hinted at.  
"An... old friend of my master's made it," Yanda replied.  
"Master?? So you are not alone; I thought not," Miriam smirked  
knowingly, he had scanned the woman and knew her to be a Boomer, albeit of an  
unusual design. That made him sure that there was someone else behind the  
scene. "I agreed to help you if my plan failed. What will I be doing?"  
"WE," she emphasized, "will continue on a similar track to your plan but  
with some... changes which will necessitate some research before we act. Most  
of the technology we possess but there are flaws that need to be corrected."  
"And that is why you contacted me?" Miriam felt pleased that his  
greatness was recognized by this mysterious Boomer.  
"After we discovered your... activities with the Knight Sabers I did  
some checking and found you quite acceptable."  
"WHAT are we going to DO?? Destroy the Knight Sabers and the Crystal  
Knight? And WHO is your 'master'?" Miriam demanded.  
"Not destroy, exactly," Yanda answered him, wearing an unreadable smile.  
"Especially not the Knight, who's strength in psi would be most valuable if  
controlled...somehow." Miriam frowned from the, yet another, hint from the  
woman offerings. "As for my master..." She stood up abruptly and, surprised  
at the action, Miriam echoed her. "We will meet him now." She turned for the  
door as it opened and stepped out of the room, a curious Miriam following  
after. Yanda smiled as he caught up with her.  
"I think you'll be quite...surprised."

Chapter Twenty-One  
\------------------ 

It was a semi-cloudy morning outside and the view from the Genom  
elevator was spectacular; Madagan hadn't even noticed on the way up. Standing  
in front of Quincy's desk, she was reliving with cold fury the encounter  
between her and the Crystal Knight, aka the Blue Bullet. She had slipped into  
doing this when the Chairman had dropped into silence for a lengthy period of  
time.  
"Miss Madagan."  
Quincy's voice startled her into snapping out of her reverie and  
refocused in his face. "Sir?"  
"Thinking about last evening?" There was a neutral expression on his  
face.  
Cheeks coloring that she had been that obvious, Madagan nodded. "Yes,  
sir. Forgive me for asking, but when will a new suit be ready?"  
"A few months, if not years."  
"WHAT?!" The purple haired executive stepped right up to the desk in her  
anger. "WHY??"  
"Miss Madagan, please restrain yourself." Quincy sounded calm, but the  
faint golden glow in his employee's eyes unnerved him slightly. It was  
fortunate that mind-reading hadn't been one of her surprising new abilities.  
Seeing Madagan realize her lack of control, flushing slightly, and settling  
down reassured him. It would be a pity to dispose of such a loyal, and now  
much more valuable, employee. "Such pointless hatred towards the one who  
likely helped you to obtain your new powers and saved your life will result  
in nothing good. Please remain objective."  
Madagan hated the truths that Quincy brought up, but nodded slowly to  
acknowledge her compliance. "I'll... try. But why, sir? He could become such  
a threat!"  
"He has already become so as of last night, and I do not speak of your  
ill-fated confrontation, which I now see as a rash move on our part."  
Madagan was puzzled. "Sir?"  
"Every Genom computer that held any information and/or data about the  
research that created your suit had those particular files deleted and made  
unrecoverable. There was no trace of an intruder other than that." Quincy  
leaned forward onto his desk. "And I do mean EVERY computer since all those  
involved were connected via the Mega-Tokyo Net."  
"Every..." Madagan was speechless. "How?"  
Quincy leaned back into his chair, hands pressing together as he looked  
at her stunned reaction. "Obviously our adversary has means at his disposal  
we have not yet seen. Powerful ones. I am disturbed greatly by this,  
especially with our current dealings with him."  
"He must be able to go through our systems with ease," Madagan  
half-whispered.  
"We are changing all security codes as I speak. The magneto-optical disk  
backups are unharmed of course, but the fact remains that he broke in once;  
he could do so again and that is a fact that we cannot ignore. Until we know  
more of his capabilities I will not have research continue in that area as he  
may utilize other more... effective measures. Therefore," Quincy eyed Madagan  
with a steely gaze, "for the moment _Genom_ will no longer have any  
involvement in operations concerning the Crystal Knight, or the Knight Sabers  
for that matter as there appears to be some connection with the two. At least  
until we have more useful information." He held up a hand to stop Madagan's  
furious protest. "Until then, what you do with your free time is up to you."  
She did not miss the insinuation of that last part and smiled slightly,  
but with pleasure. "I was planning on visiting a certain store tonight  
anyhow, sir."  
He nodded slowly in understanding, but his hard eyes told her that she  
would be unsupported if she got into trouble.  
Madagan didn't really care; she was going to get back at the Crystal  
Knight somehow, and knew just where to begin. The little red-haired bitch had  
to know something and she was going to find out what. 

WHACK! "Take that, you red-scaled dummy. Hi, Anri."  
Sylvie looked up from the cash register and saw Priss greeting Anri by  
Charcoal, the guardian dragon statue. "Why do you do that to Char, Priss?"  
she asked the singer from across the room with an amused smile. Also, it  
appeared Sylia had come with her for some reason.  
"Hi, Sylvie." Priss came over to the silver-haired sexaroid, Sylia  
following, and shrugged. "Because it startled me the first time I saw it; I  
like getting back at it. Is Darlene here?"  
Sylvie grinned. "Sleeping Beauty is still upstairs in her apartment."  
Priss looked at her oddly after the un-Sylvie-like crack, then observed,  
"You've been hanging around her WAY too long."  
"Occupational hazard."  
After the two finished laughing, Sylia said, "We'd better go up." And  
without another word entered the passage that led upstairs. Priss shrugged  
helplessly at a puzzled Sylvie and followed.  
She caught up to Sylia when she entered Darlene's room. It looked like  
the red-head hadn't cared much about being too neat last night because  
clothes were scattered across the floor. Sylia was standing on the side of  
the bed that wasn't against the wall, eyebrows arched high and a small smile  
of amusement on her face.  
Darlene's apartment had a lot of average-price furniture in it, and that  
included the bed, except for the fact that it had sinfully soft-looking and  
very expensive covers and pillows. The occupant was smiling angelically,  
having wrapped herself up in the luxurious sheets, cocoon-like.  
"Y'know, it's almost a pity to wake her up," Priss noted, observing the  
scene with a smirk.  
"True. But we'd better." That said, Sylia reached down and gently nudged  
the slumbering form. Twice.  
Eyes cracked open slightly and the smile vanished as Darlene turned her  
head to blearily look at her summoner from slumber. "Sylia?" she mumbled,  
then spied Priss grinning at her. "Priss? God, I must've really overslept if  
you're awake." She smirked sleepily and then yawned.  
"Very funny," Priss grumped, then smirked in turn and said, "NICE bed,  
Darlene. What do the men think when you bring them over?" She grinned as she  
dodged the pillow missile thrown at her. The red-head glared at her from her  
now semi-sitting position revealing that she was wearing only a t-shirt and  
boxers, a fact that amused both Sylia and Priss; the inappropriate underwear  
must have been uncomfortable.  
"Hardy har har. That's funny. NOT." Darlene self-consciously shifted the  
sheets around herself again, trying not to think of how red her face must be.  
"Why are you guys here anyhow?" she asked, looking at Sylia.  
"We can't stay long, but I wanted to check up on you." She sat on the  
side of the bed. "Did you think about what I told you yesterday at all?"  
Darlene snorted a negative. "When? After I went back to the cave I  
traipsed through the Genom network and obliterated all psi-research they had  
on their computers. That'll make 'em jumpy. Then I came back home and barely  
got my clothes off and the covers over me before I fell asleep."  
"Cuddled up nicely in it too," Priss added, then dodged another pillow.  
"How about now?" Sylia asked Darlene, ignoring the singer.  
"I..." Darlene looked down, her face showing signs of the internal  
conflict that suddenly raged inside. "I don't know what to think."  
Priss knew she was being left out of something. "About what?"  
Still looking down at the bed, the red-head mumbled, "Sylia said my  
aging has slowed a lot."  
"Huh?!" Priss' eyes widened with surprise. "That's good, isn't it?  
You'll live beyond two hundred years or something?"  
"More like thirty thousand," Darlene whispered, sudden depression  
crashing down on her.  
The singer froze in shock, unable to comprehend what her friend had told  
her. Thirty thousand years of life??  
"It may be much longer, Darlene," Sylia gently added, "remember I  
mentioned that your cells are not dying as they should, or at least being  
replaced immediately. It's not regeneration, it's something else."  
Darlene's face was blank when she lifted it at this news. "Perfect, now  
I can watch more people grow old and die." Her eyes began to fill with tears.  
"Add that maybe I'm not just AGING." She clenched her hands in the sheets,  
and she cried out, "Maybe I'm MUTATING!! INTO SOMETHING HORRIBLE!!"  
Suddenly, Darlene was using her fingernails to gouge her arms, making  
bloody trails in her skin, eyes wide with sudden self-loathing and terror.  
Sylia quickly tried restraining her to prevent her damaging herself further,  
Priss jumping in hurriedly because the red-head was a lot stronger than she  
looked. Both flailed at Darlene's wildly moving arms and shouted at her to  
stop. Sylia managed to land a stinging slap on the terrified young woman's  
face through the confusion.  
That shocked Darlene out of her panic, and the energy went out of her;  
sobbing as they held her arms gently but firmly, unsure of her mercurial mood  
at the moment.  
Then Sylvie ran into the room and took in the scene. "What's going on  
with all the shouting? What's wrong with Darlene?"  
"Sylvie," Priss sighed with relief. "We might need your help holding  
her."  
"I'm..." Darlene sniffled a bit and took a deep breath before trying  
again. "I'm okay... I think."  
"Are you sure?" Sylia asked, the sympathy in her voice surprising Priss.  
At Darlene's slow nod, she released the arm she had and Priss hesitantly  
copied her.  
Looking at the bloody gouges in her arms, Darlene winced, feeling the  
stinging pain now that the panic had worn off. "I'm a mess. I didn't think  
I'd react that badly. I'm sorry."  
"DON'T!" Priss shouted angrily, startling Darlene. "Do NOT apologize! At  
least not for wigging out like that, I know I'D react badly to that kind of  
news myself so don't get down on yourself. That's what started you off in the  
first place."  
"Sor... Okay," Darlene corrected herself and gave Priss a sheepish grin.  
Then she looked at Sylvie, who appeared to be half-concerned, half-relieved.  
"You'd better go back down and reassure Anri. I'll be down in a little  
while?" she said in a querying manner to Sylia, who nodded. "Working should  
get my mind off more... disturbing things."  
Sylvie nodded, a bit relieved. "I'll see you in the store then." As she  
turned to leave, Priss came up and walked with the sexaroid out the bedroom  
door. Darlene and Sylia heard Sylvie say, "What happened?" and heard Priss'  
faint reply, "Darlene changed a bit more than we thought..."  
Sylia nodded at the fresh gashes. "Do you want some warm water?"  
Darlene shook her head. "I'll do it later; it's not too bad when you  
know you can fix them instantly and I've had much worse, as you well know."  
She grinned self-consciously at the leader of the Knight Sabers who nodded in  
agreement.  
"Have you realized that your emotional state in your two forms produce  
some very different reactions?"  
"What was your first clue? That show I put on a few minutes ago?"  
Darlene said with heaps of sarcasm, then had the grace to blush under Sylia's  
reproving gaze. "Okay, I know about it." She paused, then amended her  
admission. "At least, I knew but didn't want to think about it. It's a little  
disturbing when you find out that you're not acting the way you used to.  
Especially doing something major you wouldn't normally do and not realizing  
that until later. Like challenging Leon to a drinking match." She winced a  
little at that particular recollection. "But at the time it didn't seem odd."  
Sylia nodded in understanding. "From what I've seen I doubt getting you  
very mad in your male body would be an easy task, and when you were it  
wouldn't be blind anger but a controlled one. It's how you are right now that  
I'm worried about."  
"What's that supposed to mean?"  
"You seem to be divided into opposites in some respects..." she trailed  
off, letting the red-head get the obvious conclusion on her own.  
Memory flashed in Darlene and she recalled the time when she had just  
arrived in Mega-Tokyo. In the fight with Steelfist a comment from him had  
sparked something red-hot within her and she had lashed out instinctively  
when he thought her distracted; his cybernetic arm was broken in half by her.  
And this was when the differences in her behaviour were less noticeable.  
She shivered. "I guess I see what you mean, but that's only happened  
once and I'd never hurt my friends like that."  
Sylia caught something from her voice. "You sound very positive about  
that." Something about that was odd, but the reason seemed to elude her.  
"Of course I am," Darlene continued with more cheer, "aside from martial  
arts practices and fun." A thoughtful look came over her suddenly. "I  
wonder..."  
"What?"  
"This aging thing. I might've known somehow." THAT idea brought very  
uncertain emotions to the fore.  
"What makes you think that?"  
"Well, think about it; I've been here over a year and a half and I'm  
only now starting to feel a faint but real desire to go back to the place I  
came here from and see a certain face...s. That's a long time to wait, don't  
you figure?"  
"It might be possible, but," Sylia sighed, some frustration evident,  
"anything could be concerning you, or so I'm beginning to believe." She stood  
up and smiled down at her friend, who seemed to be trying not to laugh at  
what Sylia had just admitted. "I do have to go now." She got to the door  
before stopping and turning around. "And... I too know something of having to  
adapt to changes." There was something in her eyes that told Darlene that  
Sylia believed the red-head knew a little about what she meant.  
The young woman in the bed nodded back. "Yeah. Thanks, Sylia, for  
finding out." She smiled faintly and Sylia returned it before slipping away.  
Darlene sighed and flipped away the covers. She'd slept long enough.  
Time to get to work. 

Priss and Sylvie greeted Sylia downstairs.  
"So, how is she?" Priss asked.  
"She appears to be accepting it now. Normally to do it that quickly  
would concern me, but..."  
The singer nodded, "Yeah, she can get into some heavy downs but she  
usually recovers damn fast. Still," she frowned, "that self-mutilation she  
tried to pull worried me, and how come you didn't tell me and the others  
about that longer lifespan stuff?"  
"I just told her last night, when she was Twister." Sylia frowned,  
vexed. "That gender change still gives me headaches. Anyway, I was more  
worried about how she would react as Darlene, with good reason."  
"So it's true about her? Darlene's almost immortal?" Sylvie queried,  
intrigued.  
"As far as I can tell."  
"Strange. A few well-made Boomers nowadays could outlive their owners by  
several generations or even much longer. Then Darlene comes along and turns  
it the other way around." Strangely, Sylvie looked sad after she finished.  
Priss scratched the back of her neck. "Y'know, I'm not sure if I should  
feel envious or sorry for her. Especially after what she said about watching  
people grow old. Life can be a real bitch."  
"Life is duty, duty is forever," Sylia commented to nobody in  
particular, before nodding to Priss that they should go. "We have to be  
going, Sylvie. I may phone you later to see how she is." When the silver-  
haired woman nodded, both Sabers left.  
Anri came over after finishing talking with a customer. "What was the  
matter with Darlene, Sylvie?"  
Her friend sighed. "It's a short story but it feels longer..." 

Chapter Twenty-Two  
\------------------

THAT EVENING... 

"Ahhhhhhhhhh," Darlene sighed out as she stretched. "Closing time at  
last."  
Sylvie and Anri, both standing in front of her, laughed a little at the  
relief embedded into the red-head's voice. "Today wasn't THAT bad," Anri  
teasingly objected, Sylvie nodded her agreement with a smile.  
"Yeah, well, I had a busy night yesterday," Darlene rolled her eyes at  
the understatement, "and I think being very, very lazy for the rest of the  
day will help me a lot."  
Anri, surprisingly, came up and hugged Darlene. "You'll be okay, won't  
you?" she asked after drawing back a little and looking directly at the  
other's startled blue eyes.  
"It was pretty rough news," Sylvie said, echoing Anri's concern.  
Darlene sighed slightly and gazed at the other two's faces. "I think so.  
It's just going to take a while to get used to the concept, I guess." She  
shrugged, then flashed a grin. "At least I'll have a lot of time on my  
hands." The two sexaroids grinned, both in relief and at her comment.  
"I'd better lock the front," Anri suggested, waiting for Darlene's nod  
before heading for the entrance.  
"How are you two's lives getting along anyhow?" Darlene asked Sylvie,  
then added with a grin, "Need a raise?"  
"Gee, thanks, Boss," the brown-haired woman said, and grinned at the  
other's level glare. "Just kidding. Actually, that would be nice. We really  
should get out more. Like another person I know." The last statement directed  
at Darlene was not a subtle hint.  
"So I don't get out that much..." Darlene began to protest.  
"LET ME GO!!!"  
Anri's angry and frightened shout immediately caught the two's attention  
and, startled, they saw the reason why she had yelled. A very tall and wide  
man that practically screamed 'Boomer' held the blue-haired sexaroid in  
baseball glove-sized hands as he entered the store. She struggled helplessly  
in the steel grip as she was brought in, feet dangling uselessly above the  
ground. Two more men of equal size, also obviously Boomers, entered the store  
as Sylvie and Darlene watched by the cash register, both wondering what was  
going on and what to do about it. Then another person confidently entered the  
store. One with purple hair.  
"Not again," Darlene groaned, but quietly enough so that only Sylvie  
heard. The red-head had recognized Madagan instantly. "Please, no, I've had  
enough for a while."  
The Genom exec didn't oblige her as she approached the two, a Boomer  
flanking her on each side and the one holding Anri standing slightly behind.  
Madagan was smiling, which was a bad sign to those in her path. She stopped  
a few feet away before speaking, looking at Darlene and Sylvie with mocking  
pleasure.  
"Well, now. I was hoping to get more information about the Crystal  
Knight, but this," she nodded in such a way as to indicate Anri, "was  
certainly more than I expected so soon. Having a sexaroid..." Stopping to  
look speculatively at Sylvie as a sudden thought occurred to her, Madagan's  
smile grew even more. "Make that TWO sexaroids, I should have noticed the  
first time I was here, is illegal. Preoccupied, I'd imagine. Did you know  
what they were?" she asked Darlene.  
"I don't own them. They work for me and are my friends," Darlene ground  
out, angry from having her domain invaded in this manner. She could tell  
Sylvie was restraining herself from trying to rescue Anri. Fortunately, the  
other sexaroid didn't seem to be in any immediate danger.  
"'Friends'?" mocked Madagan, making Darlene angrier yet. "So you DID  
know. Did you know the one in MY 'friend's' hands used to work for a  
monster?"  
"Largo manipulated her," Darlene spat out, not caring much that perhaps  
she was telling Madagan more than she should. "It's not her fault. Besides,  
you don't need to be built to be a monster." Her furious glare and tone left  
no doubt on whom she meant. Sylvie sucked in her breath in sudden fear.  
Madagan narrowed her eyes and her smile vanished. "Monster? Then I  
shouldn't disappoint you." She shot out her arm as her eyes glowed brightly,  
sending out the most powerful wave of telekinetic force she could manage. It  
sent a surprised Sylvie flying backwards until she smashed against a wall  
hard enough to stagger her and then fall to the ground.  
Darlene had ignored the wave completely as it had no effect on her.  
"Sylvie!" Anri and Darlene cried in unison.  
Total shock was on Madagan's face after seeing the red-head ignore her  
psionic power. "Impossible! How did..?"  
Darlene had thought that she was over her frustrations and confusion  
from the previous night and this morning, but seeing one of her friends hurt  
again by Madagan was the final straw of the haystack that had landed on her  
back recently. Still, she didn't dare cast a spell, that much sense was  
available in her growing anger.  
Instead, she summoned her sword, uncaring of the others' reactions.  
Every being in the room was shocked when a purplish glow appeared above  
one of Darlene's hands and quickly became a fairly ornate sword that she  
gripped firmly, fury burning in her eyes. "I have more in common with the  
Crystal Knight than you suspect, Madagan!" she shouted, using the Genom  
exec's name like a vile curse. "I may not use psionics, but I DO have other  
options available!"  
This was enough for Madagan. "Stop her!" she demanded, and her Boomers  
reacted to her wishes, bursting and expanding into their combat mode.  
Darlene didn't wait; she jumped over the three in front and swung at the  
as yet untransformed Boomer, who still held an astonished Anri. The enchanted  
sword was up to the task of cleaving though the Boomer's arm, the separation  
making it involuntarily release Anri as it bellowed its pain. The blue-haired  
sexaroid scrambled out of the way and tried to reach the groaning and rising  
Sylvie. Darlene leaped away before the other two Boomers could catch the  
red-head.  
"Stop her!" Madagan repeated her command. "But don't kill her!"  
This was easier said than done. Darlene was in a real rage and she was  
venting all her frustrations upon the three Boomers trying to catch her.  
Unfortunately, they were destroying most of the store as the incredibly agile  
and quick martial artist dodged the powerful C-55 Boomers, who did not use  
their more lethal weapons because of Madagan's order. Display glass and  
artwork were smashed and littered the floor.  
The three-on-one wasn't giving Darlene much opportunity to strike back  
with the sword, which the Boomers now regarded as the deadly weapon it was.  
The strikes with her feet, despite the way they actually dented her  
opponents' armour, didn't do much. It was a particularly large piece of glass  
that was her undoing. Darlene was preparing to use a handspring to dodge once  
more, but her hand was stabbed through by the glass piece on the floor. She  
cried out in pain and stopped long enough for a Boomer to slam its fist into  
her stomach, sending her flying into and through a still undamaged display  
case. The wall finally stopped her with a jarring thud and she dropped to the  
ground with a groan, cut deeply and scratched all over.  
"DARLENE!" screamed Sylvie and Anri.  
Madagan smiled, relieved that her Boomers had won. "You two," she  
ordered the one-armed Boomer and one of the undamaged two, "guard these two  
sexaroids and make sure they don't do anything. Boomer F-128, get the owner  
of this store before she recovers."  
There were a lot of questions she wanted to ask this mysterious young  
woman.

Pain.  
Anger.  
No.  
RAGE!  
The memories rushed though her mind. Recollections of what Madagan had  
done to her and friends. This confrontation. The fight. Losing. The pain.  
Everything seemed to be escalating her fury as she gasped helplessly.  
Using the Crystal Knight armour was the farthest thing from Darlene's  
mind. She had beat Madagan even without the armour. Male. She didn't need it  
now! Didn't need it! If she could've trust her spells... DAMMNNN!! She needed  
more power!  
Madagan's pleased voice infuriated her further, anger increasing to a  
previously unknown degree and she trembled on the floor, paralysed from rage,  
as the Boomer approached to catch her. To put her at Madagan's mercy.  
NO!!!  
SHE! WILL! NOT! WIN!!! was Darlene's last furious coherent thought.  
In the exploding nova of mindless fury that then went off, Darlene  
REACHED.  
She found something, instinctively, and drew it into herself.  
It was what she wanted, what she desired.  
Be careful what you wish for.  
The Power came, roaring into her being like wildfire. Darlene screamed  
at the burning felt through every fibre of her being. This... this Wild Magic  
was totally new to her--and it was TOO MUCH!! She couldn't handle the wild,  
chaotic energies that battered at her inexperienced will, so unlike the more  
orderly spells she usually cast. She c-couldn't... couldn't...  
And then...  
...her sanity shattered. 

Something wasn't right.  
Madagan could almost taste it, but could see no cause for her senses to  
disturb her so. The two sexaroids were holding each other, one still dazed  
from the Genom exec's attack, the other seemed disinclined to cause any  
trouble. Madagan saw that the surprising, and annoying, red-headed owner  
which was the reason she had come would soon be brought to her and then she  
would get the answers she wanted.  
So what was wrong? Why was this feeling of danger growing?  
Boomer F-128 reached the wounded female and roughly yanked her head up  
to see if the female was conscious.  
Madagan recoiled in shock and involuntarily took a step back. The young  
woman's gaze practically BURNED with hatred. She'd never seen anybody with  
that much anger in their eyes, never thought anybody could do so.  
Then the emotion changed, and Darlene's eyes and face showed, for a  
brief moment, utter shock. In that brief moment her eyes went from normal, to  
emanating a faint violet glow, and finally to a purple blaze of light.  
Then the red-head screamed.  
As if following the scream, light with that same intense purple hue  
exploded outwards from the girl's body, blinding Madagan for a moment before  
her eyes cleared. The gasps of surprise from the two sexaroids told her this  
was new to them too. When she saw once more, Madagan began to understand why  
that feeling of dread had grown as she saw, with disbelieving eyes, what had  
happened.  
Boomer F-128 was frozen like a statue, because now it WAS a statue; a  
statue of clear, shining glass. That was flat out impossible! Then she saw  
who had done the insanity, and for the first time that night, started to feel  
afraid.  
For Darlene was outlined in purple flame, flame that came from her body  
but did not burn. She had changed too. Time seemed to have struck her with a  
vengeance, for now she appeared around the mid-twenties and as she shakily  
stood, had grown taller and filled out more. The aging did not stop. The  
expression on Darlene's face was the worst part; she seemed to be in quite a  
bit of pain, but a twisted grin on her face made it look like she was  
revelling in it.  
The aging accelerated, and Darlene's clothes changed to match, subtly  
enough so that they fit. A strange thing that occurred to Madagan's stunned  
mind was that Darlene's face, while becoming more mature, had stayed  
youthful. Her hair, however, changed. A white streak appeared in the middle,  
and rapidly grew until her hair was completely white. Madagan now judged her  
around seventy years old, but the woman still seemed to have retained her  
youth while at the same time becoming more mature, and taller. Faster. Her  
hair had grown long as well, almost down to her waist.  
Then, at some undefined point, something new and even more dramatic  
happened.  
The face, that had remained mostly unchanged save from maturity,  
altered. It lengthened suddenly, became more angular. Eyebrows and eyes  
shifted. Her hair, once white, gained color once more, but now that of the  
same purple that shone in the flames around her, that burned from her eyes.  
The body lengthened as well in a sudden growth spurt and settled into a more  
slender and graceful shape. Clothes rapidly morphed into a half-gold,  
half-silver armour weave that covered her chest and torso, looking flexible  
and strong. Pants of a purple shade to match boots of the same color were  
created. Sleeves and gloves with no fingers came into being and provided the  
same function and color for the arms. A slightly shimmering cloak of a darker  
purple finished the new outfit.  
Then the flames surrounding her died out.  
The transformed Darlene breathed deeply, then giggled in a disturbing  
way. She swept her still-blazing gaze around the messy room, even her  
movements seemed to be different, smooth. When she brushed her newly grown  
hair back, everyone saw the pointed ears.  
Darlene looked like an elf!  
Her gaze locked on the statue that had been F-128. She hit the glassy  
chest with a casual backhand and shattered the statue into dust. All save the  
head, which floated in mid-air until Darlene raised a hand underneath it and  
lowered it to her eye level.  
"Alas, poor Boomer," she spoke sadly in a newly musical voice. "I knew  
you not." Then she cocked her head. "And I don't give a damn." Darlene  
dropped it and the head exploded into countless shards on the floor.  
Clutching Anri tight to her, Sylvie whispered, "What's happened to you,  
Darlene? What's going on?"  
"Ah, Madagan," Darlene said in that new voice of hers, smiling  
cheerfully. "'Stop her?' 'But don't kill her?' Tsk, tsk, tsk." She waved a  
disapproving finger at the still stunned Genom exec who was now around the  
same height as her. "The second command is not yours to decide. And the  
first... well, let's just say that's going to be really, really,  
reeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaalllllly hard to pull off." Reaching down gracefully, she  
retrieved her sword. It had slipped from her fingers when the destroyed  
Boomer had punched her through the display case. Once grasped in her altered  
hand, the sword grew and lengthened to fit her new size.  
"What..." Her voice broke so Madagan tried again. "What are you?"  
"What am I? Hmmmmmmm. Good question." Darlene waved and suddenly a  
mirror appeared beside her, with nothing supporting it. Carefully, she peered  
at her reflection, turning one way, then another; smiling, then frowning;  
then brushing her long hair back to smile at her new ears. She did a complete  
pirouette before making the mirror vanish. Satisfied, she turned back to a  
slightly annoyed Madagan. "It appears that I've become an elf," she said,  
stating the obvious with a smile. Then her expression hardened, the still  
blazing orbs narrowed, and the smile became an extremely wicked and  
disturbing smile that showed her teeth a little. Madagan's neck hairs went  
straight up.  
"And, my dear, right now I am a very, very pissed off elf." 

Chapter Twenty-Three  
\-------------------- 

Everyone in the store stood still, a moment of indecision shared by all.  
The Boomers were unsure of what to do; they waited for Madagan's orders. She  
herself was internally debating whether to attack, talk, or just start  
running. Sylvie and Anri stayed seated on the floor and continued to stare at  
what their friend had become.  
But the transformed Darlene acted first.  
"Madagan's Downfall, Act II!" she cried gleefully, whipping her sword  
level and extended in one hand, pointing at a previously ignored object of  
the store. "Cue protector dragon! AWAKEN, CHARCOAL!!"  
A solid bolt of intense purple energy in the shape of a double helix  
lanced down the mystic blade and roared through the air before hitting the  
red draconic statue seated in front of the store's entrance. Coursing lines  
of light raced around and within the unliving form when it was struck,  
spreading the purple energy into every bit of matter that comprised the  
scaled sentinel. Everyone save the grinning Darlene and the Boomers flinched  
away from the bright display.  
Then it stopped.  
For a moment nothing happened.  
The tail twitched.  
Wings stirred, obviously no longer merely metal.  
Suddenly, the head rose as the magical beast stretched its neck from  
side to side; Madagan watched in disbelief and stunned horror. Once frozen  
eyes blinked slowly, then locked onto the purple-clad form of Darlene, a deep  
rumbling purr thrummed almost inaudibly from the beast's throat.  
"Yay!!" Darlene cheered enthusiastically, jumping up and throwing her  
arms wide, releasing the sword and letting it fly through the air to imbed  
itself in a far wall with a loud 'THWOK!!!'. She pointed at the Boomers, and  
whooped, "Look, Char! Chew toys! Sic 'em!"  
Immediately, the dragon swivelled its head to focus on the blue androids  
and roared deafeningly prior to leaping up from the position it had been  
crafted into and charging the Boomers. It was unnaturally swift for something  
that large and one Boomer was caught in the creature's forearms, claws  
digging through weapon resistant armour with little difficulty, before most  
of the upper body was bitten off by a vicious chomp of dagger-like teeth.  
"Do you like him?" Darlene eagerly asked an ashen Madagan. "He certainly  
doesn't play with his food like some kids, but then, maybe he finds Boomers  
tasty. I wonder if he'd like Genom executives," Darlene thought about it for  
a moment, then shook her head, smiling evilly. "Nah! I want you ALL to  
myself."  
That did it. Madagan's waning confidence vanished, and she took one step  
towards the exit. Then another. Then she broke into a totally panicked dash  
for the exit, eyes wide with panic and not looking behind her. Darlene  
watched curiously as she raced across the store and, after flinging both  
doors open, running away outside.  
Meanwhile, the other Boomer had tried its built-in machine guns in the  
arms to little effect against the enchanted metallic scales of the red dragon  
while it finished off the first Boomer. As the wyrm turned to it, the  
Boomer's chest flipped up to reveal the lens array of the heat weapon inside.  
Char lunged forwards, mouth gaping wide as lens began to glow. The weapon  
fired just before the maw of the beast reached its prey. Unfortunately, the  
Boomer did not know something about colors of dragons.  
Char was a red dragon.  
Red dragons LOOOOVE heat.  
The outcome was predictable. The Boomer fired uselessly and Char bit  
into the mid-section, whereas the portions above the upper chest and those of  
the legs flew away from the region the dragon devoured hungrily. The long  
tongue wrapped around the pieces left and drew them into the hungry abyss  
awaiting.  
As the dragon licked its chops, Darlene ran over and hugged the beast  
she had brought to life around the neck. "GOOD boy!" The dragon rumbled in  
pleasure. She released the hug and turned towards the fearful sexaroids. The  
sight of them staring at her like a stranger changed her mood instantly and  
Darlene became morose as she approached.  
When they shuffled back slightly, she stopped. "So. Afraid, are you? ARE  
YOU?!!" she screamed at the two on the floor as they stared wide-eyed at her.  
"Perhaps you should be, perhaps not." Darlene turned away from them, and  
stood silently, the slightly shimmering cloak stirring faintly.  
"Wha..." Sylvie stopped and swallowed nervously; something was very  
wrong here. "What's happened to you, Darlene?! How did you do...?"  
"Charcoal? The glass Boomer? Changing into THIS?" She threw her arms  
wide still facing away from the two on the floor. "Magic, of course."  
"Magic??" Anri and Sylvie chorused, incredulously unbelieving until a  
loud snort from the dragon made their disbelief much harder to maintain.  
"Yes, but perhaps Wild Magic, as I call that which fills me now, is more  
accurate. Behold." Darlene waved one hand and the debris in the store began  
to move. In a small hurricane of activity, shattered glass and panelling  
swirled in the air before flying into position and merging seamlessly to  
repair all the damage to the store. When it was done, Darlene shrugged and  
said, "And if that doesn't convince you, even with all the proof you've seen,  
this might. Char! Perch!" she imperiously commanded the dragon.  
Charcoal the red dragon crouched, wings extending, and leapt into the  
air towards Darlene. And shrank, incredibly quickly. By the time it reached  
Darlene, wings flapping, the dragon was small enough to land on her right  
shoulder comfortably.  
Sylvie and Anri had managed to get to their feet and stared at the  
diminutive dragon when the magic-user turned to face them. Her burning eyes  
discomfited them as the beast chirped, its voice gone higher from the loss of  
size.  
Suddenly, Darlene's mood changed again and with a laugh she placed a  
hand on a shoulder of each sexaroid. "Isn't this neat? I should've told  
everyone about my magic, but my spells haven't worked right since I arrived,"  
she bubbled excitedly. "That's fixed now, I don't know why but it's true! And  
I'm not looking up at your face now! Too bad I didn't know this," she took  
her hands off their shoulders and waved at the elfin body, "would happen.  
Losing my sanity isn't so bad now, since I suppose this is what I'll look  
like naturally in around thirty thousand years. Nice to know, eh?"  
Anri couldn't believe her ears. "You mean... you're insane??"  
"Sure!" Darlene said brightly. "Couldn't you tell? Hmm. Maybe you  
shouldn't answer that." She giggled in an unnerving way. "Of course, there's  
still some nagging remnants of my conscience, but don't worry; I'll grow out  
of it."  
"Darlene, can't you change back?" Sylvie asked desperately.  
The elven-looking countenance pouted. "Why should I? I don't NEED to  
speak now to cast spells, even though they CAN be fun, and insane I can keep  
drawing on more power." Suddenly, Darlene smacked a fist into her palm. "Oh,  
yeah! I almost forgot." She looked at her scaled companion. "Go and follow  
Madagan. I'll be there soon." The mini-dragon chirped again, and launched  
itself from its perch, vanishing mid-air in a poof of fire. "I wouldn't want  
to lose her now, oh no, definitely not now," Darlene slyly said to herself.  
"Maybe you should stay here until you recover," Sylvie suggested  
hurriedly, hoping that her friend wouldn't leave in her current state.  
"Stay? Recover?" Darlene narrowed her eyes angrily. "I will go where I  
want to! And YOU TWO can stay here!" Jabbing her fingers at the two startled  
sexaroids she cast another spell. Sylvie and Anri were suddenly bound with  
bands of white light around their legs and pinning arms to their sides.  
Conversationally, ignoring the two's startled cries, Darlene went on,  
"Stopping now is not my wish, and I don't care what I will feel if I ever  
return to normal. Normal! HA! As if I can ever be called THAT anymore."  
Looking up, she made a decision, her face for a moment revealing the insane  
fury that still raged inside her, and she hissed, "Now I will go hunt and  
torment my prey."  
Soundlessly, she vanished.  
"DARLENE! COME BACK!!" Anri screamed uselessly, struggling in her bonds.  
"It's no use. We don't know how to reach her," Sylvie said, testing her  
own restraints. She tried hopping and managed to reach the vid-phone. "Maybe  
someone else can."  
Somehow, after several abortive attempts with a pen in her teeth, she  
managed to make a call and Priss' face appeared. "Hello? Sylvie! What the  
Hell??" the singer exclaimed when she saw the bonds that held her friend.  
"Priss, just listen, please! There's no time. Madagan came and made  
Darlene crazy! Now Darlene's a super powerful magician and after Madagan! I  
don't think she'll stop at anything! She tied me and Anri somehow then  
disappeared."  
"Sure...," Priss said warily, staring at the glowing bonds that held the  
sexaroid. "This is a joke, right?"  
"NO!!!!" Sylvie put all her fear and frustration into her shout. "Hurry,  
Priss!! Darlene's gone insane!"  
"Okay, okay!" Priss held up her hands in surrender. "I'll call Sylia. I  
just hope she doesn't think I'M nuts." The picture blinked out.  
Sylvie prayed that too. 

Blocks away from the store, Darlene stood alone on a windy rooftop,  
smiling faintly. Senses that had become more acute fed her intense, heady  
input as newly lengthened hair swirled gently around her, cloak flapping  
behind her. She lightly caressed her face with a hand, savouring the intense  
new sensations, and smiled wickedly when she stopped.  
It was glorious to be free of most of those irritating morals and  
restrictions, some half-understood even in her current state, like the liquid  
water one. So silly! She had not actually gone against any of them yet, save  
perhaps binding those two back at the store, but only because she had not had  
opportunity.  
Yet.  
"It's dark. But not stormy," she critiqued to herself, peering up at the  
slightly cloudy sky. "If I'm going to go on a rampage, I simply must have a  
storm." Darlene brought her seemingly delicate hands close together and  
started the summoning for her thunderstorm. One she would control completely.  
"Madagan, I WILL have you," she purred as light formed and pulsed  
between her hands, eyes blazing slightly greater from the fury within.  
Clouds in the sky above began to gather.  
And grow. 

"So." Sylia leaned backwards in her chair. After a moment's hesitation,  
she reached over and pressed the button that summoned all the Knight Sabers.  
Priss hadn't phoned Sylia, she'd decided to bike it and deliver the  
message personally. Her leader's reaction wasn't what she had expected.  
"You're not taking this seriously, are you, Sylia?" Priss said, her  
disbelief evident in her voice. "I mean, come ON. Magic??"  
"Very seriously, Priss. While I didn't now exactly HOW, I'd hoped this  
wouldn't happen."  
Priss spoke very slowly, "You knew about this? This is real?"  
Sylia looked away and sighed. "Yes. And as much as I find it hard to  
believe...yes, this is all too real. It was because of my reluctance to  
accept it that I didn't tell you or the others."  
"Oh, perfect! So, not that I really believe any of this, how strong is  
she now?!"  
"That's what we're going to find out," Sylia grimly answered.  
Priss grimaced. "I was afraid you would say that." 

Madagan panted heavily, finally catching her breath. It seemed the  
nightmare was over. She was in her Genom limo's back seat, which seemed huge  
now that the three Boomers that had originally accompanied her were not  
seated with her. The vehicle had been ordered away so as not to appear  
suspicious, but after her frantic escape, and losing some of her  
fear-paralysis, she had used her personal communicator to order the car to  
pick her up. The only other Boomer she had left was the driver, not much of  
a reassurance after what she had witnessed.  
A glass of liquor(she didn't care what it was) was in her hand, half-  
full after an attempt to calm her usually solid nerves. Normally she would  
not, but this night had been bad, more a nightmare. Her rock-steady world  
view had been badly shaken, almost shattered, something she feared more than  
death. Still holding the glass, Madagan signalled the chairman over the car's  
communication system, hoping he was still in his office.  
A screen blinked to life. "Quincy here." The craggy features of the  
chairman appeared, then showing faint surprise when he took in her ragged and  
dishevelled appearance. "Miss Madagan? What happened to you? You seem  
distressed." Madagan's hysterical laughter after that comment did not  
dissuade this opinion. "Are you drunk?" he inquired neutrally, seeing the  
glass.  
Hearing that, she stifled the laughter that threatened to go on forever,  
and took a deep breath to calm herself. "No, this is my first glass and I've  
only had half. I wish I was at the moment. There was some... difficulty in my  
personal activities."  
Quincy's face was guarded. "Genom will not be involved, or interfere if  
you encounter trouble."  
Madagan laughed scornfully, not caring right now how powerful the person  
she was talking to was. "Trouble? My God, if only you had seen what I have  
tonight. Trouble is mild to what I saw."  
"Sooooo correct, Madagan," a syrupy sweet voice spoke from the hidden  
communications speaker, interrupting what Quincy began to say as he heard it  
too. "The hunt is on, and I'm getting clooooser." Madagan recognized it and  
her face went white with shock. A flash of lightning outside the car flashed  
briefly.  
"Who is that?" Quincy demanded.  
"Who am I, puny little moooortals?" Darlene's voice continued in a  
teasing tone. "Someone you might not want to meeeeet. Perhaps I'm Armageddon  
come at laaaast. And now, Maaaadagan, I'm coming for you." The screen that  
contained Quincy's image shattered, ending the call rather firmly.  
Far away at Genom tower, Quincy's screen shattered too, much to his  
surprise.  
Madagan had barely time to draw back from the broken screen when  
something else happened.  
SSSSSSCCCCCCCCRUNCK-CREEEEEEEEK!!  
Her eyes widened in shock as she saw the roof of the limo being ripped  
off like a tuna lid, then ducked her head to avoid flying glass. With a final  
shriek, the top came loose and flew away, held by something large, powerful,  
and scalely. When the sound vanished, Madagan looked up again and could see  
the growing storm that hadn't been the sky ten minutes ago; she prayed that  
she was wrong about the source of the changing weather. The limo had also  
stopped in the middle of the street, the Boomer chauffeur seemed to be having  
trouble starting the car. Traffic stopped behind the limo because some had  
seen the large dragon tearing the roof off; in front the cars had gone ahead,  
having seen the dragon and NOT wanting to stop.  
In front was where SHE appeared.  
There was an violet aura around Darlene, highlighting her unusual nature  
and making her visible to Madagan, as well as to the surprised drivers behind  
the stopped limo. A small smile was on her face, calmly standing in the  
middle of the street, the growing wind moving her flowing hair around.  
Madagan saw alright, and desperately she cried, "DESTROY HER!!"  
The remaining Boomer heard and complied. It kicked out the driver's door  
while ripping out of the human disguise and stepped out of the car. From all  
available input the android assumed the target was an extreme threat, no  
normal human could look the way the target did; long distance assault seemed  
the best option so it opened its mouth and fired the laser cannon. The beam  
was dead on target.  
The target CAUGHT the beam.  
The Boomer, Madagan, and the assorted drivers behind her, stared.  
Still wearing her smile, Darlene impossibly worked the beam of light  
with her hands, wrapping it, twisting it, strange squeaking noises somehow  
being produced. Finally, she proudly held up the finished result. "Look, a  
French poodle!" she pronounced in a strange manner, the dog-like shape the  
frozen laser beam had become glowing in her hands. "Now get outta here, kid,  
you bother me," she continued in the same tone and tossed the glowing figure  
at the Boomer.  
As soon as the dog-figurine left her hands, it began to change. Its  
balloon-like appendages shifted, becoming more canine, and growing as well.  
Halfway to the Boomer, the poodle no longer resembled a cute little doggie;  
now it was more like its primitive ancestors, and very realistically at that.  
The lean lupin form dropped to the ground, avoiding the warding hands of its  
prey and leaped up within the outstretched arms, feet leaving smoking paw  
prints in the road.  
The azure wolf's jaws reached the Boomer's throat and closed, laser  
teeth sizzling easily through and decapitating the cyberdroid neatly before  
the canine form exploded in a burst of coherent blue light, melting the  
falling android slightly.  
Darlene brought up a hand to cover her mouth in mock-dismay. "Oh, my!  
That wasn't a French poodle; that was a Siberian timber wolf." She sighed. "I  
never was good with identifying species. But," she added as she raised an arm  
towards Madagan's transportation, "I definitely know a certain member of the  
human branch is about to become extinct." Energy began to gather in her hand  
as she aimed for the limo.  
Madagan noticed, and frantically opened her door. As she scrambled away  
from the limo a... distortion, that was the only thing she could describe it  
as, suddenly roared from Darlene's hand, flattening road deeper into the  
ground and impacting into the vehicle. Metal was squeezed and kneaded like  
bread dough; windows didn't shatter - they popped like soap bubbles; and  
rubber tires became rubber spaghetti. The gasoline ignited, but the explosion  
blew vertically, like a volcano.  
Still, the blast was enough to make the fleeing Genom exec stumble  
forward, but not enough to stop her. Madagan didn't look back, she couldn't  
look back, she had to run, she had to get away. And did so by turning at the  
intersection the limo had just passed and continuing to run down the sidewalk  
of another street.  
The elven-looking magic user watched her disappear around the corner.  
"I've got your scent now, Madagan; you can't get away," she said silkily, and  
began walking to pursue. The aura disappeared, but the spectators that had  
gathered drew away as she approached, having seen what the stranger had  
mysteriously done and fearful of her still-glowing eyes.  
"Damn Boomer," someone muttered quietly, but Darlene's newly keen ears  
heard it. She immediately stopped and pivoted to face the source of the  
comment. The crowd melted away as the person who had uttered the comment  
froze in sudden fear, realizing he had been heard.  
Darlene gave the man a curious look; he appeared to be a business man as  
he was in a moderately-expensive suit. "I am no Boomer, mortal," she said,  
playing the role of Angry Elf to the hilt. "Could a Boomer do this?" she  
inquired, smiling.  
Instantly the man found most of his body constricted and weighted down.  
Panicked, he looked down and found, to his great surprise and amazement, that  
it was his suit that was doing it; For it had become solid yellow, shining  
GOLD. The man gave a startled yelp and found himself trying to keep his  
balance. He toppled over hard, unable to do so.  
"Maybe I should've included him as well," Darlene mused aloud as the  
crowd gasped and ahhed. Brightly, she turned around with a smile that held  
some malice within it. "Sure! Does anyone else want to volunteer? I'll try  
stainless steel this time." She advanced, hands outstretched and pulsing with  
a disturbing light.  
The crowd paused, then some woman screamed and that started everyone  
running away in a panic from the insane magic-user. The street was soon  
deserted.  
"Everyone's a critic," Darlene pouted, letting hands drop down to her  
sides. Then she remembered Madagan and started off again.  
"Hey!" The man screamed from his golden prison, struggling. "You're not  
leaving me like this, are you?!"  
As she left the area, Darlene turned her head and called out. "Sorry!  
Places to explode, people to play with! Someone should come along soon. Ta!"  
And then she too disappeared around the corner Madagan had run around.  
"But I'll miss my dinner meeting!!" the man cried, but knew it was  
futile. Sighing, he let his head drop to the pavement, depressed and  
wondering when help would arrive. None too soon, he suspected dismally.  
He cheered himself by figuring out how much his suit was now worth. 

Chapter Twenty-Four  
\------------------- 

"Hey, Leon!"  
"Hmm?" Leon looked up and saw his partner heading his way with an odd  
expression on his face. "Hey, Daley. What's up?"  
"There's a disturbance downtown and our two squads have been ordered to  
mobilize."  
Looking carefully at Daley's face, Leon asked, "Why do I get the feeling  
this isn't the usual Boomer crisis?"  
"Come on. I'll tell you on the way."  
"Sure," Leon said uneasily, getting out from his chair. Whenever his  
partner got like this it meant something REALLY strange, and potentially  
lethal, was going on.  
As they walked down halls, Daley elaborated.  
"The normal cops encountered it... her a half hour ago when a patrol car  
was heading towards a reported disturbance. A woman, not the perp, stopped  
the car by standing right in its path. When the cops got out, they found she  
was frightened out of her wits and was running for her life. They tried to  
find out what she was running from, but she kept insisting that they get her  
away from the area, immediately." He paused as he pushed the button for the  
elevator.  
"They found out why quickly enough as the reason the woman was so scared  
arrived. Leon, it was an elf." The elevator door opened and Daley stepped  
inside, Leon almost didn't make it as he had been so startled by the news.  
"An elf?!?" he said disbelievingly. "Some bizarre kind of 33-S you  
mean?"  
"No, I mean your Tolken-style, magical kind of elf. This is too weird  
for a Boomer, Leon. She turned the patrol car into Jell-O."  
"A new type of weapon?"  
"Leon, I mean she TURNED the car into REAL Jell-O! Strawberry flavor, I  
hear." His partner stared at him. "The elf did this after the cops tried to  
warn her to stay away. Understandably, this spooked them just a bit."  
"I'm not having this conversation." Leon seemed to be having a headache  
and put a hand on his forehead. Daley looked on sympathetically. "I'm  
dreaming this, aren't I?"  
"No such luck." The elevator doors opened and they exited.  
"So what happened then?" Leon asked with a sigh, giving in to Daley's  
weird tale.  
"The other woman started running again and left while the elf was  
occupied with the cops. Oh, we've IDed her as a Genom executive; Kate  
Madagan. The woman, not the elf. Very highly placed too. Maybe Genom has been  
stealing fairy treasure and leprechaun gold." Daley grinned for the first  
time since he got Leon from his desk.  
"Just tell me what happened, please?" Leon asked in a pained voice.  
"Well, the two officers pulled out their guns and told the elf to stop  
where she was. The elf apparently considered this and told THEM to stop. And  
they did."  
"Huh?"  
Daley gave him a sober look. "They were stopped until the next patrol  
car came along and saw the two. The elf was nowhere in sight. Like statues,  
the new officers described them, until one was touched and almost blew away  
the guy who poked him. It was like no time had passed between confronting the  
elf and coming to. The other guy was woken up to corroborate stories."  
Leon saw where this was heading. "So when their superiors heard about  
this they figured it must be a Boomer and got ADPolice on the case?" The  
resignation in his voice told Daley that he already knew this as inevitable  
fact, due to the stupidities of the upper command.  
"Bingo."  
"You never get bored in this city," Leon sighed, shaking his head.  
"Alright, let's go arrest this...elf."  
"Maybe she'll give us three wishes when we catch her," Daley said  
cheerfully.  
Leon snorted and had to smile. "I'll believe it when I see it with my  
own eyes."  
"You have no imagination, Leon."  
"Hey! Of course I do. Just ask any girl I've dated."  
"I rest my case." Daley chuckled at the glare Leon gave him.

Darlene laughed loudly and threw her sword again.  
It became akin to a blazing comet, the Dragonsword at its core, and tore  
through four parked cars, making them explode like firecrackers. It  
disappeared in flight and reappeared in the insane magic-user's hand once  
more. She had begun blowing up objects on the road and sometimes stores as  
well with it after her encounter with those funny cops, whom she hadn't seen  
again for some reason. It kept the road clear (evacuated) for her and Madagan  
to continue their stroll through downtown. The Genom exec was quite a  
distance away on the road, but that didn't matter much; Darlene could always  
catch up. It really was a shame that Madagan seemed to be approaching the end  
of her endurance.  
The storm above was truly a pleasure to see. Black thunderclouds looked  
like onyx chased with gold from all the lightning churning within, energy  
ready to be unleashed, held in check only by her power.  
Time for a withdrawal. She pointed at a still-intact car up ahead.  
"Zap!" Darlene commanded.  
The clouds above responded adroitly and one of Zeus' thunderbolts came  
to earth, striking the vehicle squarely. The flash of billions of volts  
outlined everything in sharp relief milliseconds before the shockwave created  
by the flash-heated air shattered windows within the immediate vicinity.  
"Glorious!" Darlene exulted as the smited car burned and glass settled  
to the ground.  
Something landed behind her.  
Whirling around, Darlene saw who had come... and frowned.  
The Knight Sabers had arrived, standing in front of her. Priss and Nene  
stepped back in shock when their transformed friend turned around, unprepared  
for the amazing metamorphosis that the former red-head had undergone.  
"Darlene, what are you doing?" Sylia demanded calmly, voice not  
betraying the nervousness she felt after seeing Darlene call down the  
lightning bolt. She was also shocked at how many changes had been wrought  
upon the young person she knew; such dramatic alterations should not have  
been possible, but the glowing eyes looking in her direction reminded Sylia  
of the power Darlene claimed to possess when female. A power which could not  
be disbelieved now.  
"Doing?" The road slightly behind Darlene bulged upwards, higher,  
transmuting into new material, and quickly forming into an ornate throne upon  
which the elven-liking woman sat gracefully. "A little hunting, but  
remodelling mostly. You like?" She waved at all the destruction around her.  
"Oh yes, and my new looks too! Are they the real me?" The earnest smile she  
gave them didn't look very sane.  
Strangled noises could be heard coming from Priss as Sylia debated her  
next reply. Apparently the singer's opinion on magic being make-believe was  
not standing up well to Darlene's display.  
"Sylia..." Nene whispered pleaded over the private radio link they all  
shared, fearful for her friend. "What's happened to Darlene? Is that really  
HER?"  
"And how did she change the road to GOLD and GEMS???" Linna added on the  
same channel, referring to the throne newly formed on the street.  
"Yes, how DID I manage that?" Darlene interjected from where she sat,  
appearing very interested in Sylia's response, startling them at her ability  
to hear their encoded transmissions. Then she frowned, puzzled. "Hey, where  
IS Linna?" she said, finally noticing the absence of the green hardsuit.  
"NOW!!" Sylia barked.  
Before Darlene could say another word a powerful stream of water from a  
nearby roof struck her squarely on the head, drenching her as Linna carefully  
aimed the stream of hot water at the seated mage from the pressurized tank  
they had brought. She turned off the water quickly knowing she had hit her  
friend and leaped down to the street below.  
But the hot water had not done the job Sylia had thought it should have  
done. Darlene's hair was plastered flat with water, allowing the pointed ears  
to be seen, and she glared balefully at the Sabers like a wet cat, unaltered  
by the hot water.  
"What?" Priss said disbelievingly. "What the hell went wrong?"  
Suddenly, despite the water attack, Darlene's mood turned cheerful.  
"Nice try, Sabers, but I suppose I'm too weighted down with power to change  
now: the balance of power is tipped too far at the moment." She waved and a  
powerful gust of hot air dried her off swiftly. When Nene and Linna started,  
she grinned, "I can do some really neat things now, if you hadn't noticed.  
Magical things.  
"And I guess I should answer the question as to what happened to me.  
Before I would have been very upset by current developments; now I don't give  
a damn." Her fists clenched as her face reflected the inner fury that had  
burned inside since it had blazed into existence. "Damn that Madagan!" she  
spat furiously, eyes flashing as thunder from above echoed her exclamation.  
"Invading my home, threatening, TAUNTING me and my friends! This time will be  
the LAST!" Fists slammed down on the arms of the throne and it shattered into  
dust as Darlene propelled herself up, energy crackling around her and playing  
havoc with reality. It winked out a moment later and she smiled once more.  
"But I'm getting off topic."  
"And scaring the shit out of me," Priss muttered.  
Darlene heard but pretended not to hear the comment. "My spells, other  
than enchantment of objects, have been acting strangely since I arrived,  
that's fixed now by the way, so I didn't tell anyone because I didn't want to  
risk losing my friends because magic might've stretched friendship a bit.  
Especially after not telling anyone for so long. But I got so angry with  
MADAGAN," she clenched her teeth and continued, "that I reached for power I  
didn't know I could possess. And I got it! Unfortunately, my younger body had  
to compensate for power it couldn't handle so I involuntarily aged to a point  
where my body COULD handle it. This," she waved at herself, "is what I guess  
I will look like somewhere around thirty to forty thousand years from now. I  
can FEEL that's the right answer. However, while my body could age, my mind  
couldn't cope and so my sanity broke into little bitty pieces." She paused in  
reflection, then laughed. "It's SO much more fun now not worrying about  
consequences."  
"And can you become sane again? What will happen then?" Sylia queried,  
even now staying calm.  
The elven brow furrowed momentarily in concern, then cleared. "Who  
cares? I don't, even though I suspect my sanity still has a weak hold on me.  
Why should I care?"  
"Get rid of the damn power before you do something you REALLY regret  
later, you dumb ditz!" Priss shouted furiously.  
"Please, yes! Get rid of it!" Nene pleaded.  
Everything became silent.  
Softly, gently, Darlene whispered, "You don't understand what I can do  
now, can you, Priss?" She appeared to quiver for a moment before stilling  
again.  
"Priss, don't...!" Sylia warned, too late.  
"Yeah?? What CAN you do?" Priss demanded angrily.  
The silence came again.  
The elven mage whispered, "Char, take her for a wild ride. As for the  
others... playtime begins." With that said, Darlene vanished.  
"Wait!" Sylia shouted, but it was far too late.  
"Char?" Linna said, confused. "Say, isn't that her store's drag..."  
rrrrrrrooooooOOOOOOOAAAAAARRRRRRR!!!!!  
Startled, Priss was suddenly propelled upwards by an expanding, scaly  
neck, the other three Sabers were shoved backwards by the growing form that  
was attached to it.  
"YAAAAA!!!!" Priss shouted at the top of her lungs by the totally  
unexpected act. She tried to get off immediately, but found... "I'm stuck! I  
can't get off!!"  
"That IS Char!" Nene said from the ground, staring at the impossibly  
alive dragon. "The statue in Darlene's store that Priss hits all the time."  
Charcoal snorted, startled by the news, then growled low.  
"I think it can understand you, Nene," Linna warily said.  
"Oh, THANKS!" Priss said sarcastically, frantically clutching for a  
handhold. "Remind it about that, why don't you!"  
Wings snapped out and the wyrm crouched, a draconic chuckle emerging  
from its throat.  
"Oh no," Priss said with dawning dread. If Darlene made this thing, it  
might have her sense of humor. Which meant... "Oh, godDAMN!! Get me off! GET  
ME OFF!!!" she cried frantically.  
Too late.  
Steely muscles launched the mighty form, and its unwilling passenger,  
into the air before any of the others could react. Rising into the stormy sky  
far faster than mere physics could account for, Char the newly awakened  
dragon got ready to give his rider the ride of a lifetime. And unlike  
rollercoasters, he didn't have to stay on a earth-bound track.  
This was going to be fun!  
Sylia watched in frustration as she watched the two fly off. She tried  
getting a response from Priss but the unwilling dragon rider did not answer,  
something was blocking the singer's communications. There was no way they  
could catch that thing by themselves. They had to find Darlene and somehow  
bring her back to her senses, but how could...  
"Ah, Sylia, either I'm having a nightmare," Linna said, interrupting her  
thoughts, "or did I really see Darlene transformed into an elf, itching for  
Madagan's blood, and a dragon carry off Priss?"  
"If you're dreaming this then so am I and I don't CARE right now!" Nene  
said. "We've got to find Darlene and tell her to stop!"  
"Priss tried that method already," Sylia dryly said. "The results were  
somewhat disappointing and, unfortunately, hot water does not appear to  
change her in her current form."  
"We've got to try SOMETHING!" Nene cried, frustrated.  
"Playtime..." something whispered eerily.  
The three women froze.  
"Playtime... playtime.... playtime..." echoed several more voices.  
The three Knight Sabers gathered back-to-back, quickly scanning the area  
but not seeing what was making the noise.  
"Sylia..." Linna nervously muttered.  
"Shh!"  
Suddenly, stirring began in many spots on the street. Wreckage from  
cars, shattered pavement, moved into several places where the pieces joined  
a growing blob of material. Large growing blobs of material. As the three  
Knight Sabers watched, the blobs formed amorphous arms and legs, with a  
baldish head on top. There were fifteen blobs in all and their features grew  
more defined as they suddenly shuddered into walking towards the Knight  
Sabers.  
"What are those things?" Nene fearfully asked.  
"How should WE know??" Linna retorted.  
With a final, violet flash the monsters were completed and the ten-foot  
tall monstrosities advanced upon the staring Sabers.  
"Is this a JOKE?!?" Sylia burst out, recognizing the figures.  
Blades sang as they sprouted out from pudgy purple fingers.  
"I don't think so," Linna answered her.  
"I'm beginning to favor Priss' opinion on Darlene's sense of humor,"  
Sylia growled, truly annoyed at the ridiculous sight.  
"Why's that, Sylia?" Nene innocently responded.  
"You really don't want to know..."  
Just before they attacked, the terrible creatures began singing, "I love  
you, you love me, we're a happy family..."  
"After this, I'm going to have a long talk with that girl," Sylia  
promised grimly.  
"Actually, they look kinda cute, besides the knives that is," Nene  
observed.  
"Please, Nene. Just get ready."  
The Boomer Barneys waddled forth. 

Chapter Twenty-Five  
\------------------- 

"Hey, Lady."  
Madagan jerked her head up from the cup of coffee she had been staring  
at and looked fearfully at the man who had spoken.  
Leon sighed, then smiled reassuringly. "Relax, okay? You're safe now."  
[Author's note: Yaright!]  
Madagan blankly looked at him for a few seconds, then closed her eyes  
and shook her head. Taking a deep breath, she struggled to regain some  
measure of calm. After doing so she opened her eyes and saw a relieved Leon  
waiting for her reply. "I... Thank you," she managed.  
"You're welcome. Normally I'm not the world's greatest Genom fan, but  
I'm not one to kick someone when they're down. Especially in the state you  
seemed to be in when you ran into our barricade." Leon's face conveyed his  
sympathy. He frowned up at the flashing sky. "I'd've helicoptered you out of  
here but this weird storm makes me leery."  
"SHE'S making the storm," Madagan said, absolute conviction in her voice  
as well as a slight tremor of fear. "No wind, no rain, a dead calm when a  
storm that big should be blowing like a hurricane. Her doing."  
Leon looked at her uneasily but couldn't refute her claims; the storm  
WAS acting very oddly. Damned unnatural, in fact. "I didn't need to hear  
that. I really didn't." He sighed. "What did you DO to make this...elf," Leon  
still couldn't believe he was saying that, "so damn mad at you?"  
"I threatened and injured her on her home ground without knowing what  
she was." That Madagan admitted this was an indication of how rattled she  
was, a fact not lost on Leon who knew top execs of Genom would rather die  
than admit something like this. Which meant this elf had terrified her  
through the normally invulnerable Genom superiority complex something fierce.  
"Now she wants me," she sobbed, composure cracking again. "All because I  
wanted to know more about the Crystal Knight!"  
"The Crystal Knight? How does he..."  
"LEON!!" Daley shouted from the front of the barricade. "She's HERE!"  
Madagan jerked violently, spilling coffee.  
Pointing at her, Leon barked an order to one of his men. "Watch her and  
keep her safe." Then he went to see what all the fuss was about. He weaved  
through the gawking men in from of him until he pushed through to his  
partner's side. When he registered the sight he saw twenty feet away from the  
barricade, he stared in amazement.  
The elf had fists on hips, cloak draped over each bent elbow to provide  
a background for the image she projected. Her lithe-looking figure, revealed  
by the form-fitting clothing worn, and delicate face that her purple hair  
framed, belied the power that shone from her eyes. She appeared quite amused  
by the formidable mass of ADPolice and equipment that was arrayed before her.  
All in all, the elven figure was quite a sight, and very different from the  
brutish variety of Boomers they usually faced.  
Leon spoke to an officer standing beside him who wore an infra-red scope  
that identified Boomers. "Is she a Boomer?"  
The man checked his scope, then checked again. Extremely confused, the  
officer replied, "Sir, my scope's reading looks like a video game; the words  
'NICE EFFORT, TRY AGAIN' is all I can read."  
"On an INFRA-RED scope??" The elf's musical laughter told Leon that;  
one, as crazy as it sounded the elf was responsible; two, she could hear them  
easily for the timing was too good; and three, she had a really nice laugh.  
"So, you can hear me?" he inquired, addressing the mysterious being beyond  
the blockade.  
"Oh, I can hear you quite well," was the elf's clear response, even more  
unnerving because she had not shouted but sounded more like she was standing  
right beside Leon.  
Leon rubbed his forehead, then looked at Daley. "Y'know, you can take  
over any time here," he offered.  
"Feeling the solid ground of reality slipping away, huh, Leon?"  
After giving Daley a sour look, he turned to address the elf. "I'm  
afraid I have to arrest you for destruction of public and police property as  
well as disrupting the peace."  
The elf cocked her head. "Oh, really?"  
KA-TOOM!  
The ADPolice officers were unprepared for bolt of lightning that struck  
the road a few blocks away behind the elf, temporarily blinding Daley, Leon,  
and those officers not wearing their flash-protectors, used for seeing when  
laser bolts are flying around you. The roaring thunder didn't help either.  
KA-TOOM! KA-TOOM! KATOOMKATOOMKATOOMKATOOMKATOOMKATOOM!!!!  
One after the other, electrons ripped through the atmosphere to strike  
the earth below. Each one getting closer and closer to the barricade until  
the final one struck just behind the one who called the lightning.  
KA-TOOOOOM!!!!!!!!!!!  
Silence.  
Slowly, realizing the fireworks were over and hearing his ears ring a  
little from the loud percussions, Leon peered over his arm and gaped a little  
before a grim feeling stole over him. The street beyond the elf was  
multi-cratered and glass from broken windows littered the ground. And there  
was positively no way that it could have been a natural occurrence.  
Absolutely unaffected by the destruction that she had summoned, the elf  
seemed to be gazing right at Leon and was no longer smiling.  
"It is a time when magic is more powerful then science, and only those  
who control the magic control destiny. They... are DEFINITELY not you!" She  
snorted contemptuously. "Arrest me? What a joke! But then, ADPolice IS a  
joke, isn't it?" she sneered. "I tire of this hunt. Where is Madagan?"  
Leon waved his hand in a negative gesture. "You're not getting her,  
whoever you are. And unless you surrender, I'll have no other option but to  
use heavy force." He ignored the incredulous stare Daley was giving him.  
The elf blinked in astonishment. "Surrender? To you?"  
"Yes."  
She paused, then smiled happily. "Okay," the elf decided brightly.  
It took Leon a moment for her response to register. "What?" he said.  
"You mean you...surrender?" Eyes bright, literally and figuratively, the elf  
nodded the affirmative. "O...kay," he said dubiously, wondering if this elf  
had been hitting the flower nectar a little too heavily. "Bochinski!  
Wadderson! Go escort her here," he ordered two of his men, who hesitantly  
began walking towards the purple-colored figure.  
Under his breath, Kennith Wadderson swore quietly. "Why do we have to  
bring in this bitch?" he muttered to himself. He had been offended by what  
the elf had called ADPolice so he did not relish this task, beautiful as the  
elf was. A sudden crackling sound drew his attention and he froze, as did  
Bochinski.  
The elf was glaring murderously at Ken and her anger was palpable.  
"Bitch?" she hissed between clenched teeth, energy spitting around her hands.  
Kennith swallowed; she had heard!  
"If you've killed us, Wadderson, I'm not going to forgive you," said his  
fellow officer and friend beside him, beginning to back away.  
He hadn't gone one step back when the elf moved with inhuman speed and  
grasped an arm on each man. Her grip was unshakable, not that either would  
have much time to attempt to break free.  
The elf laughed maliciously, and before anybody could react she intoned,

"So bitch it is, so bitch I see,  
but split in twain, I give to thee,  
one so fair and one so fleet,  
forever now my spell complete!!" 

Releasing their arms, her hands drew back slightly and then lanced  
forwards, blazing with intense purple fire, to strike both men's chests  
simultaneously with incredible force. Both men screamed as they were flung  
back through the air towards the barricade. Every cell in their bodies felt  
like they were on fire and agony was all they knew before losing  
consciousness. Their comrades behind the barricade caught them and two groups  
of bodies fell to the ground, the two out-cold officers in top.  
"I've changed my mind," the elf said flatly. "Bring me Madagan!"  
"Dammit!" Leon swore and turned around. "Are the men suited up?" Seeing  
another's nod, he shouted. "Okay then! Apprehend the elf!"  
"Do you think we're in trouble?" Daley asked as he came up beside Leon.  
"Hell, yes," Leon sourly answered. "The only reason I didn't order the  
men to shoot was that it might've pissed her off more. You'd better get our  
guest out of here while the suits distract her." He turned to look at the  
waiting elf. "That's about all we can manage with anybody who can make storms  
and call lightning at will. Better go."  
"Right." Daley nodded and went to collect the Genom exec.  
"NO!!" roared the elf, having heard every word. Suddenly, her sword  
appeared in her hands and gripping the hilt, drove the blade halfway into the  
street. Mild shockwaves radiated outwards from the point of impact, and died.  
Then the tremors began again.  
ADPolice officers stepped back as sections of the other three streets  
that the intersection the barricade was positioned at burst up from the  
ground. Higher and higher the stone walls grew until they topped twenty feet.  
Some officers saw that sewer manholes had disappeared, others noticed the  
buildings around them now had whole windows again. The glass would prove to  
be unbreakable.  
"No," repeated the elf more calmly, pulling the sword easily out from  
the ground. "My walls will not fall. She is mine." And, with a peculiar smile  
on her lips, she said, "And Madagan will come to me now." 

Madagan looked up at the worried Daley as he looked around at the stone  
barriers. Something was wrong; she could feel it despite her fear. As she  
strove to find out what, she suddenly found herself being restrained by the  
red-haired Daley.  
"Hey, now! It's better if you stay here."  
"What?? I didn't... I..." Madagan was confused, she hadn't stood up and  
yet she was standing! Her legs tried to move forwards again, pushing a  
surprised Daley back, and her eyes widened in sudden panic. "I'm not doing  
this!"  
"Urgh... Could've fooled... me," Daley grunted out, trying to keep her  
back and failing.  
"I'm not in control! She's bringing me to her!" she cried out, helpless  
to stop herself.  
"I could use some help here!" Daley demanded politely and several men  
hurried over to help. They succeeded in dragging her back, but it was  
impossible to get her off her feet and it was getting harder to hold her.

Leon rubbed his eyes and looked again at the scene before him.  
Yes, it was still the same.  
Unfortunately.  
After the last little display, the suits had gone out; now two were out  
and the third in the process of doing so. The first had been disabled, oh  
hell, DESTROYED, when the elf had blown a kiss!! at it. The suit had behaved  
like a puddle of water when someone blows on it; it had SPLASHED, that was  
the only word that seemed to fit, away from its startled operator, leaving  
him to run back to the safety of the barricade. Puddles of the liquefied  
metal still pooled on the ground.  
The second had swung a fist at the elf. Leon had thought she would dodge  
but she had just stood there, smiling. When it hit her shoulder, the elf  
didn't budge an inch, but a network of cracks had raced up the fist, arm, and  
body, making the suit crumble apart into tiny fragments.  
The third she was playing with using that damned sword of hers. Slicing  
away bits and pieces every time she swung. The nimble elf was far too fast  
for the bulky suit to even come close to catching her; it wasn't going to  
last long.  
"But she hasn't killed anyone yet," Leon mused.  
"Yes, sir. The two she seemed to fry are... fine," reported an officer  
with a little hesitation.  
"Bochinski?"  
"He's come around and making jokes about frying pans."  
"Wadderson?"  
The officer hesitated. "She's still out."  
This discrepancy took a second to sink in. "Did you say 'she'??"  
"Yes, sir." Seeing Leon's stare, he explained, "We were surprised as  
hell but when we took off the helmet...you could DEFINITELY tell." He shook  
his head. "Wadderson wasn't the prettiest guy around, but now... Hair color,  
face, body, EVERYTHING'S changed. There's not much left of the old him that  
I could tell." The officer coughed. "Some of the more...ah...macho troops  
were really tempted, but I suggested it might be catching, and that could be  
true, I guess."  
"He...she's THAT pretty?" The officer's emphatic nod made Leon sigh.  
"Good work. If anything happens I'll have that person's balls. And the  
elf..."  
"Nobody's going to say the b-word for a while." Despite the situation  
the officer had to smile at Leon's snort.  
"Smart. Very smart." He turned around just in time to see the last suit  
jerk to a stop, and the pilot bail out, the elf merrily cut up what was left.  
She finally stopped and faced the barricade, crooning, "Maaaadagan.  
Coooome to me."  
Behind Leon there was a startled shout, and then the hapless Madagan  
came striding through the front line officers like they weren't even there.  
With a curse, Leon ran after her, heedless of his own safety. "Stop!"  
As Madagan finally came to her, Darlene-elf smiled in triumph. Still,  
she heard Leon's demand and an idea sprang into her head. "Stop? That's still  
a good idea!" Clapping her hands together, she cried, "STOP!"  
Dead silence descended, save that of Madagan's steps and Leon's strides.  
The helpless exec stopped right in front of the angry elvish mage, Leon  
arrived a second later. "What...what did you do?" he demanded, panting.  
"I stopped everything...by speeding US up," Darlene answered cheerfully.  
"Now, no one will interfere."  
Leon whipped his head around and saw that she spoke the grim truth. His  
men were as still as statues. Someone had even tossed a gun to someone and  
now it hung in mid-air, motionless. A sinking, helpless feeling could be felt  
in his stomach; that made him angry and he stepped in front of a surprised  
Madagan.  
"Look, will you just go back to wherever you came from? I'm not going to  
let you hurt her."  
"She's from Genom! She's an enemy!" Darlene spat out.  
"Don't you have other enemies to fight, dammit?!"  
"Other..." Darlene drew back, and thought about this new idea. Her eyes  
widened. "You're right! How could I be so forgetful! So blind!"  
"What??"  
"I'll take care of Malkon, then Genom, and THEN destroy Madagan! I  
should've gotten my priorities straight." She shook her head sadly. "Ah,  
terrible that I let my mind get so distracted. Now, how shall I do it...?"  
Ignoring them, Darlene looked down and put a hand on her chin, deep in  
thought.  
The other two stared at her. "Who IS this person?" Leon demanded crossly  
to himself and Madagan, not expecting an answer.  
Surprisingly, Madagan gave him one. "She is...or was...an art store  
owner. Red-headed, much shorter, and..."  
Leon hadn't gotten his rank for nothing, and he figured it out when she  
mentioned red-headed. "Darlene?!?!" he blurted out, shocked. Madagan stared  
at him when he spoke her tormentor's name.  
The transformed Darlene looked up at him curiously. "Yes, Leon? Oh, you  
found out? Like the new look?" Seeing him speechless, she shrugged and went  
back to her deep contemplations.  
"That's... Darlene??" he managed to say. Madagan stared at him  
disbelievingly.  
"You know her??"  
"Apparently not as well as I thought," Leon said uncertainly, wondering  
how he should react in this situation.  
"She's insane!"  
"And who made her that way?" he said, turning around and glaring at the  
exec, suspecting the answer.  
Madagan guiltily looked away at Leon's fierce stare, hating herself for  
doing so.  
"Right!" Darlene's shout startled them both out of their argument. She  
was facing away from them and pointing her hands at the remnants of the  
ADPolice suits she had demolished. "Gather," she commanded, and all the  
pieces of three suits shifted or flew into a growing mass of circuits and  
armour. "Coalesce," was her next command and the mass responded, merging and  
mixing the components of three powered suits into one. "Transformation," and  
now her hands began to burn with purple fire as the mass became a humanoid  
figure fifteen feet tall. Massive weapons grew on the arms and nasty looking  
blades formed on most parts of the body. It still appeared like someone could  
pilot the thing inside but now it seemed to be attaining a malevolent life of  
its own. Leon was suddenly reminded of the D.D.  
"EMPOWERMENT!" Darlene finished triumphantly and a beam of roaring  
purple fire shot from her hands, striking her new creation and stopped after  
a few seconds of this, then she lowered her hands. The glass for the unneeded  
operator glowed a purple so deep it looked black.  
Darlene's wicked smile was triumphant. "Wild magic burns through your  
circuits now. HE will have trouble with you because of that, or so I sense.  
You are destruction! Awaken when you arrive in his domain! GO!" Her sharp  
command created a portal underneath the huge creation and it fell into the  
rift. Then the rift vanished.  
"One down, two to go," she said, pleased with herself  
"Wh..where did you send that thing?" Leon stammered slightly, still  
shaken by the sight he had seen.  
"You REALLY don't want to know, Leon. It's a very warm place," Darlene  
said with a giggle. A white light grew in one of her hands. "Now for Genom.  
Starting with the main tower."  
"NO!!" Madagan rushed around a startled Leon and with both hands grabbed  
the arm that held whatever spell Darlene had created for Genom. "DON'T!" she  
cried, trying to keep the mage from throwing her spell.  
"Too late." The light vanished and Madagan stared helplessly at where it  
had been. "Want to know what it will do? It will slowly disintegrate the  
tower from top to bottom, growing in power as it goes," Darlene calmly  
informed her. "It might take a week. You opened Pandora's box when you made  
me angry enough to reach, unprepared, for the power I now wield and making me  
insane." She cocked her head curiously. "I see that my conscience must be  
getting weaker, for the spell will disintegrate people as well if they touch  
the spell's area of effect as it spreads." Then, Darlene slowly focused her  
glowing eyes on the Genom exec.  
"And now it's YOUR turn, Madagan."  
Madagan's eyes widened in sudden fear, realizing now how dangerously  
close she was. She tried to get away, but Darlene's free arm came around and  
trapped the woman close to her with a deceptively powerful arm. Madagan  
struggled futilely.  
"Wait!!"  
Darlene looked up, mildly peeved to be interrupted. "What is it now,  
Leon?"  
"Don't kill her," Leon said, holding up a hand as if to restrain her.  
"I've been around and talked with you enough times to know that this isn't  
like you. You'll regret it if you do this."  
Her eyes blazed at him. "Do you think I CARE right now?"  
"Do you?" he asked simply.  
"Do I...?" It startled her, not so much the question but the hesitation  
she felt. Darlene had thought that such matters were beyond her now.  
Something deep within disagreed. The thing she had sent to Malkon's and the  
spell for Genom tower had been relatively impersonal and so she hadn't felt  
any hesitation. This, however, was not. She looked at her captive and saw the  
fear in those eyes. Madagan had no chance at all, not as she was now.  
Despite that, and seeing her captor's sudden internal struggle,  
Madagan's fear perversely firmed into determination. "Kill me then," she said  
calmly, feeling comforted with self-confidence returned.  
Little things can trigger major reactions, and Madagan had unwittingly  
found the correct response for the situation. Darlene blankly looked at  
Madagan's calm acceptance of the inevitable; she sensed it was no deception  
and now her instincts were always true. They were actually HELPED by her  
unstable state of mind but they WERE true. It was how she felt this was what  
she would look like in around thirty thousand years, and how she was casting  
complex spells without rhymes when she wanted.  
"I... You..." For the first time since the transformation there was a  
strain, sweat began beading on her forehead from the internal conflict.  
"Kill... YES! NO!" She released Madagan and clutched her head from the  
conflicting desires within. Eyes shut, breathing raggedly, Darlene staggered  
back.  
Madagan merely stood, watching and waiting; her fate would be decided on  
what happened next. The strange fey mood still gripped her.  
"I have power... unready!....too much....what..." Fire began to ignite  
all over Darlene's body, the same purple energies that filled her within now  
openly revealed. The speed-up spell broke and they returned to normal time,  
the officers in the barricade shouting at Darlene's blazing form. "Power...  
no...power go. Power go," she said in a rising voice, louder, more pleading.  
The flames grew higher and the ground around her began to glow.  
Leon saw this and rushed forwards to grab a calm Madagan, then together  
they ran for the barricade. He had a feeling something big was about to  
happen.  
"Power go. Power go! Power GO! GO! GO!" Darlene jerked her fists above  
her head and screamed, "LEAVE ME!!!!!"  
What happened next wasn't as loud or as bright as the lightning strikes  
before, but in it's own way more powerful and frightening. A column of fiery,  
purple energy appeared where Darlene stood, tearing apart the road around  
her. All the energy that she had held within herself, and kept full by  
constant drawing, was released in all its raw untamed force into the sky. It  
streaked heavenward, until, by its own existence, ripped a hole into the  
Void. People on the ground that saw the rip immediately turned away,  
disoriented greatly as they were unable to comprehend or witness the utter  
blankness of the Void while in their own reality. Eventually, all the raw  
energy left into the rift, which immediately closed with nothing left to  
sustain it.  
The still transformed Darlene gave one last soul-wrenching cry and  
collapsed to the ground, weeping.  
The storm, held at bay for so long by the power she had wielded, finally  
unleashed its fury and instantly a windy downpour began drenching the city of  
Mega-Tokyo; as if the storm was crying with the mage who had regained her  
senses at last.  
Knowing the damage she had done and all the near-deaths she had ALMOST  
caused, Darlene desperately wished she hadn't.

IN A REGION OF HELL...

Malkon frowned and looked up from the tome he had been studying, sitting  
in his favorite chair of skulls, sensing something odd. Something had just  
invaded his realm, something that felt very disturbing to the arch-demon.  
Sighing, he closed the volume bound in green reptile scales and sent it back  
to its place in his library of magic with a murmured command. That done, he  
gestured and vanished from his study room.  
He emerged at a far corner of his personal domain and witnessed  
something making Hell even more hellish than it already was, it was  
destroying objects and demons alike with careless abandon. Fifteen feet tall  
and bristling with physical and magical power it appeared to be some strange  
type of metal golem.  
The arch-demon smiled; it had been a few years after the trouble with  
that mortal(or immortal; Malkon still wasn't sure) Twister and he discovered  
he welcomed a chance to flex his magical might. After all, it was only an odd  
type of golem.  
What threat could it possibly pose him?

Chapter Twenty-Six  
\------------------ 

The column of purple energy was easily visible from the sky. Charcoal  
the dragon spotted it immediately. He would have known even if he hadn't seen  
it with his draconic eyes; it was of the same power that flowed through his  
own body. The source was also simple enough to figure out. His creator. It  
felt like she needed his help.  
Good. He wanted to please her.  
His rider was only weakly cursing now so he needed to let her off soon;  
other strange and bizarre sounds had been heard during his erratic and  
crazed-looking flight. Char was no ordinary dragon, a result of his unique  
awakening, and had demonstrated that often during the flight. Accelerating  
until he could barrel through one of those steel skeletons rising from the  
ground on sheer speed alone had been fun. A pity Char didn't know much about  
Mach speeds; he broke quite a few windows during his flight through those  
construction sites.  
The weather was turning bad anyway and his creator needed help now so he  
dived towards her position.  
"Not again, you speed freak of a dragon!" his rider protested in vain  
when she felt the course alteration. "I'm already going to have to clean up  
the damn helmet, inside AND out!"  
Char grinned as only dragons could grin.  
But as he got closer, he could feel the intense despair of his creator,  
igniting an equally intense protective feeling in himself. When she was in  
sight, he saw many unknown humans beginning to approach her. Annoyed, he  
roared to order them away.  
They retreated not quite fast enough for the dragon's liking so he  
exhaled some fire to quicken them, and quicken they did.  
"You stupid lizard! That's ADPolice!" His rider paused, then added  
disgustingly to herself, "Yeah, right, Priss, as if a dragon knows or cares  
about cops."  
Char decided then that his rider was not as stupid as he had thought.  
Therefore, when he landed and could not get a response from the crying  
elf, he lowered his neck and allowed his rider off to get his creator so they  
could take her away to a safer place. His rider seemed to be unsteady when on  
the ground again; who knew why? And, when she too failed to get a response  
other than crying, picked up his creator.  
After some strange reluctance, and a little growling persuasion, his  
rider got back on his neck, and he took off again. He would return to the  
place he had picked up his rider.  
Char wondered what distressed his creator so. 

Leon stared disbelievingly through the heavy rain at the huge dragon  
that had taken away Darlene. And with a Knight Saber too! With Priss, as he  
knew, or at least suspected strongly, who the blue Saber was, at that!  
"What are you going to tell your superiors?" Madagan asked from behind  
him, her pose recovered and in a reflective mood, sensing that the current  
danger was over. She wore a borrowed jacket to help shield her from the rain.  
"I'll list the damages, injuries, and say that... the culprit got away."  
That it was by dragonback would be better off not said.  
"Nothing else?" she said, curious about the lieutenant's response.  
Leon sighed in frustration, running a hand through his hair. "They'll  
never believe me. Hell, _I_ don't believe me. Even if we had arrested... the  
elf, I doubt we'd have been better off." He turned to look at the men packing  
up the barricade behind Madagan. "As it is, I'm going to have a heck of a  
time explaining how one of my men is now a woman. And... it's a good bet the  
elf would've had an excellent case for temporary insanity."  
"Maybe if you see her again you can ask her to help you, and Genom,"  
Madagan added. "Remember what she said about the tower."  
"I do."  
"Then I'd best be going home." Sudden weariness was reflected in the  
Genom exec's eyes. "I have to think about some things. You can get my  
statement tomorrow, by vid-phone."  
Leon didn't bother to protest, it was more than he had hoped. "And what  
about your superiors? What will you tell them?"  
"As little as possible," she said flatly, surprising him. "Some things  
are best left alone, at least, that's my opinion now. What do you think?"  
"Hmm..." Leon peered up through the wind and rain, and said, "I'll tell  
you later."  
"Perhaps that's best. Good-bye, Inspector McNichol."  
Still wondering about events that night, Leon silently watched her  
disappear into the rain.

"Sylia, I'm getting really, really, REALLY sick of these things!" Linna  
said crossly as the rain poured down. Nene's frustrated snort told everyone  
that the red-headed hacker agreed wholeheartedly.  
"This is so EMBARRASSING!!" she said, thumping futilely with her one  
free arm at one of the purple bodies pinning her down.  
The pudgy purple things had proven to be more resistant to their attacks  
than appearances led them to believe. Five each had swarmed around each  
Saber, bloated bodies smiling emptily at them. Linna had knuckle-bombed one  
and sliced another into pieces, but while she worked on the other three the  
two she had taken apart regenerated somehow and bounded to the attack once  
more. Sylia had similar bad luck, and Nene's suit didn't do much damage at  
all.  
Fortunately, the things seemed to want to hug and dance with them more  
than slashing with their finger blades. When they did hit, it was by  
accident, not design. Still, being whirled around and crushingly hugged was  
taking their toll. Disgusted, Sylia had finally ordered them to get away so  
they could get Priss and Darlene. That was a mistake, for as soon as they  
tried to make a serious attempt to leave, the purple things, moving faster  
than Sylia had thought they could, tackled them all en masse like pro-  
football players. It was pretty much only their helmets that were not covered  
by the things. Unable to get any solid leverage on the soft weights upon  
them, the three Knight Sabers could do nothing but wait.  
Sylia was thinking of blasting the things on top of her just on  
principle when she saw something descending rapidly from the stormy sky. It  
came closer and she saw it was... "Priss!!" she cried once she recognized the  
dragon and the hardsuited figure on its neck. As it landed, Linna and Nene  
also crying out their friend's name when they saw her too, Sylia noticed  
someone else cradled in Priss' arms. When the singer carefully leaped off the  
dragon's neck and gently placed the person on the ground, she could see who.  
It was the still transformed Darlene and she appeared to be crying miserably.  
"Priss!" Nene and Linna chorused.  
The singer took in the strange scene with no small amount of disbelief.  
"What the hell happened?? What ARE those stupid-looking things?"  
"Never mind, Priss," Sylia said, feeling foolish at their current state.  
"We've tried getting free, but the constructs just regenerate and we can't  
get a grip on them. Can you see if Darlene can get rid of them?"  
Priss dubiously looked at the purple pile, then at the mage. "I'll try."  
She slowly knelt by her transformed friend and softly said, "Hey. Do you feel  
like talking?" The only response was a lessening of the heavy crying. "It's  
important, Darlene. We need to get those purple whatevers off the others."  
The elven-looking woman made a half-sob, half-laugh. "Tell them you hate  
them."  
Priss blinked. "What??"  
"Tell them you hate them."  
After staring at her changed friend, she turned around. "Um, Sylia..."  
Priss began to say.  
"I heard." Sylia heaved a sigh at the utter absurdity of this impossible  
situation, but her next words were very satisfying as she directed her  
attentions to the purple bodies above her. "Barney... Barnies, we hate you."  
The result was immediate. All fifteen of the things wailed in apparent  
pain and their features became softer, more mushy, as they melted into a  
disgusting and sticky mess. The three newly-freed Knight Sabers stood up,  
covered in purple gunk.  
"Oh, yuck!!" Nene said, repelled by the stuff on her and the others'  
suits and tried to wipe it off to little effect. "This is icky!"  
"Ditto," Linna agreed, repulsed as well by the mess on her. "How come  
Priss is the only one clean?"  
"Wanna bet?" Priss retorted. "Damned crazy dragon is worse than any  
amusement park ride." Char snorted behind her and she edged a little away  
from the beast.  
Feeling slightly apprehensive about the draconic entity, Sylia  
nevertheless started approaching their purple-haired friend. "Darlene, you'd  
better come with us and we can..."  
The rest was drowned out by a thunderous bellow from the red dragon,  
making all the Knight Sabers retreat a little. The dragon shrank a little and  
pawed closer to its creator. Lowering its head, it gently nudged the  
sorrow-filled Darlene and made a questioning rumble.  
Lifting her head, Darlene gazed with tear-filled eyes at the dragon she  
had brought to life, and whispered, "Store." At that, the cat-slitted eyes of  
the scaly form glowed and in a burst of flame both Charcoal and Darlene  
vanished.  
The Knight Sabers stood silent for a moment as they digested what had  
just happened. Finally, Priss spoke up.  
"Sylia, either I'm having one goddamned strange dream, and I hope I wake  
up damn well bloody soon, or else I have to clean off my helmet and confront  
one of my friends about what happened tonight. Somehow, I don't think that  
thrill of a task will be a piece of cake."  
"This feels too sticky to be a dream," Nene commented, futilely trying  
to get the purple gunk off her suit. "But... what are we going to do, Sylia?"  
she asked in a worried tone.  
"Yes," Linna added. "What HAPPENED tonight?"  
Sylia sighed and shook her head. "First, let's get home and clean up.  
Then we'll all go over to Darlene's shop. I don't think it would be wise to  
delay that any longer than we have to. Hopefully she won't do anything rash  
before we get there."  
"Shouldn't we go right now?" Linna asked.  
"No!" Sylia flatly rejected that action. "The less threatening we look,  
the better. Let's go." She activated her jump jets and bounded off.  
The others quickly followed. 

"Sylvie?"  
"Hmm?" the brown-haired woman murmured curiously as she leaned on the  
wall, not wanting to sit as she would have had a hard time getting up. Anri  
sat on the cashier's table, having managed to hop up onto it.  
"How much longer do you think we'll be like this?" There was no need to  
tell her fellow sexaroid what 'this' was. The bonds of light still bound them  
tight after Darlene's disappearance.  
"Hopefully soon. Darlene was..."  
As if saying her name had summoned her, the elven Darlene and Charcoal  
the dragon burst into existence where the wyrm had normally rested when he  
had been merely a statue.  
"Darlene!" both Sylvie and Anri cried.  
The magic-user did not respond verbally, but instead stood, using the  
red dragon to steady herself. Her face was tear streaked and, with eyes  
closed, slowly came over to the two worried sexaroids. When she stood before  
them she tried to talk but could only utter a half-sob. Frustrated, she  
swiped at the magical bonds with her hands and the bindings vanished with  
bursts of light. With her two friends freed, Darlene stepped back and hugged  
herself desperately, not saying a word.  
Able to move once more, Sylvie hesitantly approached her friend.  
"Darlene? Are you okay?" She immediately regretted saying that as the  
purple-haired woman looked anything but okay.  
"I'm... I'm s-sorry," Darlene managed to get out, face to the floor and  
voice laden with grief. "I... I don't... I didn't..."  
"It's all right, Darlene," Sylvie said, trying to calm her friend down.  
She reached out and placed her hand on the elven woman's shoulder. Darlene  
twitched, but accepted it. "You should get some rest. Come on, look at me."  
The hypnotic devices in her optics would harmlessly put the other woman to  
sleep.  
Darlene knew about them too, but still lifted her head and opened her  
eyes.  
Anri had been looking in slight apprehension and wonder at the dragon,  
who was looking back just as curiously, when she heard Sylvie gasp. Worried  
that something else had happened, she quickly turned around and saw Sylvie  
staring at Darlene's face. No... At her eyes. Why was she...?  
Then Anri SAW and gasped too.  
Noticing their reactions, Darlene looked rapidly at both. Fear rippled  
across her face before she turned and ran, cloak flying behind her, for the  
entrance to her upstairs home.  
She slammed the door behind her.  
The blue-haired girl shook her head to clear it. "Wha... what was that,  
Sylvie?" Anri shakily said, there was no fear in her voice, but there WAS  
wonder.  
"I... don't know," Sylvie replied, a similar tone in her own voice, "but  
I wish I did."  
Charcoal lazily stared at the scene, then exhaled softly and reassumed  
the posture he had been positioned in as a statue. There was no way to tell  
now that he had changed as he looked exactly the same as before, save for a  
glint in his eye that could be mistaken for a reflection of the lights above,  
but was not.  
He would wait until his creator needed him again.

Leon gritted his teeth and counted to ten.  
Slowly. Very slowly.  
He had just gotten back from the mess that the confrontation between his  
and Daley's squad, and the Elf. (How could she be Darlene??) The Chief had  
immediately demanded what had happened. Leon told him. During his report the  
Chief had gotten more and more red in the face from his growing anger. When  
he had finished, the Chief had given him a dressing down about taking police  
work seriously and not to 'play the damn fool' with his superiors. After ten  
minutes, The Chief finished shouting at Leon and was waiting for his reply.  
Leon took a deep breath to calm himself, and said, "Everything I said is  
true... sir." Other than omitting Darlene's name; he was sure no good would  
come of ADPolice confronting her again. "Daley, as well as EVERY OTHER  
OFFICER THERE will give you the same story. There was an elf. She destroyed  
three K-17 suits easily and sent the remains somewhere else. She destroyed a  
fair portion of street with lightning bolts and blocked off the other three  
roads of the intersection we were in somehow. AND one of my MEN is now a  
member of the opposite SEX!!" he finished with a shout, making the chief  
retreat a little. "I'M still having trouble believing it! Verify it yourself  
if you want, but IT. IS. TRUE!!" Not caring at that point what the Chief  
thought, Leon turned and started walking away. "Right now I have to talk to  
the one who was changed," he said over his shoulder. "I'll give you the  
report for THAT later."  
"LEO...!" was all the inspector heard before he closed the door.  
Sighing, he continued walking through the corridors making a mental note not  
to get within shouting distance of the Chief until the jackass found out that  
Leon was telling the truth.  
Eventually, he came to the medical section of ADPolice and walked into  
one of the waiting rooms. Bochinski was waiting here and was seated in a  
chair, finished with his own examination but waiting for his less fortunate  
friend. Daley was still cleaning up a few things so he wasn't here, nor were  
the rest of Leon's team, which was puzzling.  
"Where are the others?" Leon asked Bochinski.  
The other held up his hands. "Much as they wanted to, the doctor told  
them to leave. Felt it would be too much for hi... her," he finished,  
correcting himself. "I guess the doctor was right, but I dunno. Doc said I  
was just fine and in perfect health."  
"Lucky you," a sullen voice said.  
Both men turned and saw that Wadderson had come out. Leon did a double  
take at what he saw as he hadn't seen the transformed officer yet and was  
considerably surprised. More like stunned from what he saw. Long and flowing  
blonde hair, striking green eyes, and delicious looking lips on a sensuous  
face. This along with a perfect complexion and body any female would die to  
possess, not to mention the other sex, albeit in a different way. One of the  
female ADPolice personnel had obviously given the unfortunate officer some  
ill-fitting clothing, but the full breasts and hourglass figure were still  
very noticeable. This heavenly vision was only marred by the morose  
expression she wore, and even then only by a little.  
Ignoring Leon's hanging jaw, Wadderson walked around him and slumped  
down into a chair, staring at nothing. It was very apparent that she wasn't  
in any mood to talk.  
Snapping his mouth into place, Leon tried to say something reassuring.  
"Ah...I'm sure everything will turn out all right." Bochinski raised  
incredulous eyebrows at the lame attempt.  
"I'm sure my girlfriend will agree with you," Wadderson replied levelly,  
not looking at Leon having fixed her vision at a point on the far wall.  
"Ahrm..." This was getting worse and worse. Leon stepped back towards  
the door. "Maybe later... we can talk... Tomorrow then."  
He fled.  
"Well, that was good, my friend," Bochinski commented.  
"Shut up!" Wadderson said angrily, looking at him with her flashing  
green eyes. "And I don't give a damn!"  
"It WAS your fault," he pointed out.  
"Shut...UP!" she repeated furiously. Her hands formed claws at her  
sides. "If I EVER see that BITCH again I'll..." Wadderson trailed off, unable  
to continue in her angry state.  
"I hope not," Bochinski said quietly to himself. He hadn't mentioned it  
to the doctor since she hadn't seen anything unusual but he felt...  
different. More... alive.  
His partner might not have been the only one changed.  
He wondered if he should be worried.  
Nah.

"And that is what happened, you say?" Quincy said, no emotion betraying  
his true feelings on this rather unusual matter.  
"Yes, sir," Madagan replied. Despite what she had told Leon, Madagan  
felt that at least the director should be told the whole story, whatever he  
believed.  
He was silent, quietly looking at the blank monitors. Holding off  
judgement. Waiting.  
Then one screen blinked to life showing a rather panicked face. "Sir!  
There IS something... or rather nothing... on the roof of the tower! It's  
a... a... It looks like it's disintegrating what it touches! There's a large  
hole now and it seems to be slowly GROWING!!"  
Quincy's face tightened minutely. "Did you send in a Boomer?"  
"Yes! And... and half of its arm is gone so far! It's spreading faster  
on it than the roof!"  
"Try to find a way to solve this problem as quickly as possible. Quincy  
out." The screen blinked off before the scientist could protest. "So it's  
true," he said, considering Madagan thoughtfully.  
"As I said, sir."  
"Indeed. And what do you recommend?"  
"Do nothing." Seeing Quincy not react, she added, "I cannot predict what  
the consequences would be if we continue with... the store's owner."  
"And if we cannot find a solution to the problem already starting above  
us? Do you recommend we evacuate?"  
"I... don't know, sir."  
The chairman steepled his fingers together, and considered the new  
Madagan. Whatever she had gone through, it had strengthened her. He approved  
that in those loyal to him. But this new dilemma... "I shall tell you what I  
decide tomorrow after I see what can be done about the tower." He narrowed  
his eyes. "Be prepared."  
"Yes, sir." She wished she felt as certain of that as she sounded.  
Another encounter like the one tonight...  
Perhaps different tactics were required.  
The other way certainly had not worked. 

Chapter Twenty-Seven  
\-------------------- 

Linna's van slowed as she carefully guided the vehicle into the parking  
space. When she was done, she looked apprehensively at Sylia, who was sitting  
in the passenger side. Her leader's face was expressionless: a sure sign that  
Sylia was thinking about something unpleasant, and most likely about Darlene.  
Darlene...  
Linna still had trouble believing what had happened earlier that night.  
"Let's go," Sylia said, opening her door and stepping outside into the  
night air, Linna doing the same. Priss and Nene, who had been sitting in the  
back, looked at each other nervously before copying the others. Together,  
they all walked towards the store's side entrance, and upon reaching it Sylia  
knocked firmly on the door.  
It was an anxious minute before there were noises on the other side of  
the door. Then it opened wide and revealed a worried-looking Sylvie, who  
seemed relieved that they had come.  
"Priss!" She rushed forwards to hug her friend briefly, then stepped  
back to view all four friends. "Thank God you came; I'm not sure what to do."  
"So Darlene did come back here with the dragon?" Sylia said.  
Sylvie gave her a startled look. "You know about Charcoal?"  
"We only stared at its very ALIVE looking face for a while," Priss  
sarcastically answered her, then peered cautiously around the sexaroid. "It  
that thing here?"  
"Well, yes," Sylvie replied, then quickly added "But it hasn't moved."  
when she saw Priss backing up. It was unnecessary as Linna had firmly placed  
a hand on the singer's shoulder, preventing the retreat and earning her a  
glare. "Darlene is too, and I guess you know what she now looks like." Seeing  
them nod she sighed helplessly. "She freed us and then ran upstairs. We've...  
not tried to go up yet. She crashed around for a time and then... nothing.  
I'm starting to get more worried than when this whole thing started." After  
telling the group that, Sylvie beckoned them inside.  
Sylia immediately entered. Priss, Linna, and Nene exchanged worried  
looks before following. 

"Darlene?" Nene hesitantly called her friend, knocking on the  
apartment's closed bedroom door. There was no response.  
"She's got to be in there," Linna said, as concerned as Nene about the  
lack of activity. "We've gone through every other room."  
All the Knight Sabers had cautiously climbed the stairs to the upstairs  
apartment where Darlene lived. Smashed furniture and dents in the walls,  
floor, and ceiling! told them all how badly their friend seemed was taking  
her recent predicament. In looking for her, the four had warily searched  
through the house, leaving only one room remaining.  
Surprisingly, it was Sylia who reached forwards between the startled  
Nene and Linna and gave the doorknob a firm twist to open it. The other three  
drew back a bit, uncertain as to what would happen, but nothing did. The  
leader of the Knight Sabers opened the door fully and stepped inside. One by  
one the others followed and saw that the changed Darlene was indeed here.  
Her room was like the rest of the apartment, walls battered, objects  
smashed, and generally looking like a tornado had been through the place. The  
bed, however, seemed to have been warped, melted, and stretched like taffy.  
A strange incongruity in the mess. And sitting in a corner of the room was  
the cause of all the destruction.  
From what they all knew about her, she was in a strange position for  
someone who should still be angry, desperate, and despairing. Still wearing  
that strange armour-like garb, Darlene was hugging her legs close to her  
body, knees just below her bowed face, purple hair concealing it as it fell  
down the sides of her head. The still figure didn't react to their presence.  
"Hey... Hey," Priss said, in a rising panic, unconsciously moving  
forwards before Sylia could stop her, "I don't think she's breathing!!"  
"WHAT?!" Nene and Linna shouted, then instantly rushed over to Darlene  
as well, Sylia walking quickly behind them, a trace of growing worry on her  
face.  
Priss grabbed Darlene with both hands and violently shook the elven  
figure. "HEY!! DON'T DIE YOU STUpid..." her voice died in her throat.  
Startled, the perfectly healthy Darlene had jerked her head up to stare  
eye-to-eye with Priss. Then what was revealed to Sylvie and Anri before was  
now shown to Priss and the others. For now that the eerie purple glow was  
gone from Darlene's eyes one could see the normal-seeming eyes. The irises  
were purple, half expected, but faint flecks of light slowly drifted through  
them. And the lights were strange, wonderful, and compelling. They seemed to  
bring forth all the churning emotions within Priss' heart, all together,  
blended in a cacophony that she could feel, smell, taste, and, most  
importantly, see. It grew, and then...  
Darlene put her hands over her face, making a sound of dismay, cutting  
off the sight of her eyes and Priss broke out of... of... whatever she had  
been under. Shaking her head, she noticed that the others had seen Darlene's  
eyes as well and were in various phases of recovery from the bizarre, yet  
oddly wonderful, experience. What the hell had happened?  
"No!" Darlene shouted, voice slightly muffled while trying to hide her  
face in her hands. "Go away! Quickly! Please!!" she pleaded behind her hands.  
"Let us help, Darlene," Nene said, starting to reach over to hug the  
distraught magic-user.  
"GET OUT NOW!!!" Darlene shouted, panic and desperation in her voice,  
reflexively pushing them away by whatever means available.  
It was like a whirlwind, whatever she did. Suddenly, before they had a  
chance to brace themselves, gales of force dragged the startled Knight Sabers  
out of the room, Nene giving a shocked scream, and were dropped  
unceremoniously in a pile outside the door, which slammed shut.  
"This isn't going well," Linna groaned, picking herself off the floor.  
"No shit," Priss said, doing the same and moved to open the door again.  
Swearing, she jerked her hand off the knob and gripped her palm as if in  
pain. When the others looked at her curiously, she explained, "Damn thing's  
electrified!"  
"I'm sorry," Darlene's downcast and muffled voice came from behind the  
door, "but... but that's why I didn't... want you near me."  
Sylia spoke up. "What do you mean?"  
"I can't... I can't fully control my increased powers yet," Darlene  
explained. "When I was... out of control, I could, and after I was too...  
depressed, but when I tried to calm down I found that my control... wasn't  
perfect. You saw what happened to my bed? I didn't mean to do that." A hint  
of hysteria was present in her voice.  
Chills went down Sylia's spine. And they had been standing right in  
front of her... "Is that why you were sitting on the floor like that?" she  
asked in a steady voice. "To get rid of distractions and not damage anything  
else?"  
"Yes."  
"Isn't there anything you can do?" Nene pleaded to both Sylia and  
Darlene.  
"I don't kn..." Darlene stopped in puzzlement. "I'll be back to normal  
in two days?" she suddenly said. It sounded like she was sure, but wondering  
why she was.  
"How do you know that?" Sylia asked curiously.  
"I don't KNOW!" Darlene shouted, obviously frustrated. "I just... DO.  
What's happening to me??" she pleaded.  
"I don't know," Sylia said, echoing Darlene. "But if you will be back to  
normal in two days then we'll be able to talk safely?"  
"Yes... Maybe sooner." It sounded like another certainty from unknown  
reasons. "And... I'm sorry about tonight," she added, sounding miserable. "I  
couldn't help myself."  
"We'll forgive you," Linna said, frustrated to have to talk to a door.  
"But I'm still wondering if I'm dreaming. Magic, Darlene?" she said,  
plaintively.  
"Sorry," the voice on the other side replied weakly.  
"I can handle it, I think, but please tell me that damned dragon isn't  
still working," Priss said, hoping for a pleasing answer.  
"He's not a watch," Darlene irritably replied, lifting out of her  
depression at Priss' tone. "And yes, he still is."  
"Damn."  
"What did he do?"  
"Never you mind. But I'll give YOU the cleaning bill."  
"I think we'd better go," Sylia finally said. "Until Darlene either  
returns to normal or gets enough control, we'd best not disturb her. It's  
been a long night." As they started to go, Sylia added, "And one day we'll  
have a talk about your sense of humour."  
There was puzzled silence from behind the door, then a loud musical  
giggle as Darlene realized what she was talking about. "Um... sorry?"  
"We'll talk about it later," Sylia said ominously.  
"Right," the other sighed. 

Anri and Sylvie were anxiously waiting downstairs and were relieved when  
they saw the four coming back down unharmed, if worried.  
"Is she alright?" Anri asked Priss.  
"Oh, yeah, she's fine," the singer replied, but then continued with a  
grimace, "for a goddamned ELF, for crying out loud!" She shook her head,  
unable to dismiss the worry she felt. Who she was worrying for was unknown,  
which made her even more uncertain about her own feelings. "This is just too  
bizarre," she complained.  
Sylia's face was studiously composed as she stared at one of the walls.  
"Nene," she said, and the concerned red-head turned her green eyes to her  
leader, "tomorrow I want you to find out what happened when Darlene fought  
ADPolice."  
"Sure, Sylia. It'll probably be all over the station anyway. But what  
are you going to do?" When Sylia didn't reply immediately, Nene felt dread  
seeping into her heart. "You're not planning on doing something to Darlene,  
are you?"  
"Nene..." Linna began, but Sylia waved a hand, stopping her.  
"I don't like thinking about it, Nene, but I must make some hard  
decisions on this matter. I have gotten fond of her," she admitted, "and even  
consider her a friend, but if she ever loses control again..." her voice  
trailed off, letting her listeners' imaginations fill in the details and not  
feeling very pleasant for having to do so. "We may have to do something...  
drastic in order to prevent even more destruction, even if I don't know what  
yet."  
Then an angry, bitter voice that came from nowhere in particular,  
snapped, "If you MUST plot my capture or death, do it elsewhere!" All six  
women froze as they realized Darlene must have heard every word. "I'm feeling  
suicidal ENOUGH without you saying I'm the Herald of Doomsday! And right now  
with these damn ears of mine I can't help listening to it so do it SOMEWHERE  
ELSE!!" She stopped talking, and an accusing silence filled the room.  
Sylia's face was ashen as she realized she might have worsened matters,  
and damaging whatever trust there was between them. "I am sorry, Darlene,"  
she said quietly.  
No one expected a reply, but Darlene surprised them. "I know. You had to  
say it," her voice said, no longer angry and just as quiet as Sylia's  
response. "Besides, I was thinking along the same lines for a while. Good  
night, everyone." There was a brief pause, then, "Live long and prosper."  
There was a disembodied giggle that accompanied the various groans and sighs  
that filled the room. "Sorry, it's these ears. Night."  
Priss pushed off the wall she had been leaning on. "Let's go. She's  
gonna be okay."  
"Are you sure, Priss?" Linna queried.  
"If she's making bad jokes about it, then she's recovering just fine,"  
was Priss' sour response, albeit with a small grin on her lips.  
The audible "Hmph!" as they left the store brought smiles to the rest of  
the group. 

Darlene sighed after her indignant response, then irritably brushed an  
errant strand of newly lengthened hair out of her face.  
She supposed she was recovering, but one look at the floor told her she  
wasn't over it yet, far from it. There were gashes made in the floor's  
material, done by her bare fingers when Sylia had made that comment and anger  
had flared high. She had gotten a hold of herself quickly, the night's events  
as a result of that fiery anger fresh in her mind had acted as a reminder of  
the consequences from lack of control. Darlene shuddered.  
"Well, I'm not tired at all," she observed aloud. "Might as well fix up  
the place."  
Looking down at the damaged floor, her eyes narrowed in concentration  
and slowly the carpet reformed back into its original, whole state. Darlene  
shook her head when finished, amazed still at not having to speak a magical  
rhyme, even for something as minor as fixing a few scratches. Something  
larger would still require it without the Wild Magic filling her, save when  
her emotions ran high as when she had thrown the Sabers out of her room.  
A sudden shift surprised her. She looked down at herself, and stared.  
Her elven armour getup, that she hadn't figured out yet, had vanished  
only to be replaced by more ordinary clothes. Gone was the cloak and upper  
clothing, replaced by a white blouse and...purple ribbon?!? The deceptively  
less armoured purple pants were now just blue jeans. The belt for them had a  
stylized dragon on a largish belt buckle. Her gloves were gone, as too the  
boots but white socks with purple stripes replacing them. She frowned, and  
shifting slightly she felt something she had never worn before underneath her  
shirt. What was there she decided she really didn't want to see after  
noticing the damn ribbons.  
Darlene hadn't done this.  
Or rather, she had. Only her magic had acted on a faint desire to get  
out of the fantasy armour and likely some subconscious part of her had  
decided what to do about it. And her subconscious had some decidedly funny  
ideas her conscious didn't approve of.  
This was why she didn't want company around her at the moment. This was  
the second time her magic had reacted without her full control, true she was  
more comfortable, save one... erk... no, TWO aspects, but the way it had been  
done was unnerving to say the least. She sighed, it was doubtful full control  
would come in only two days. Maybe if she worked on control tonight she  
wouldn't have to worry. At least fixing her home would be distracting.  
There were still a lot of things for her to think about. Namely: why  
wasn't she tired? Would she feel it later? And what was with her eyes that  
everyone found so fascinating? She had looked in a mirror and didn't notice  
anything odd other than the newly purple hue to her irises, but SOMETHING  
must be there.  
Darlene thought up a partial solution to the eye problem as she went on  
to clean up the damage she had caused. Simple really, she thought as created  
the object. She felt slightly ridiculous when she put it on, but felt it  
should work.  
The mage sighed as she adjusted the preventative measure.  
The whole thing was just so ludicrous! 

Chapter Twenty-Eight  
\-------------------- 

LATE(10 A.M.) THE NEXT MORNING... 

BRRRIIIINNNGGGG!!!  
"Hello?"  
"Darlene? I see you've turned off your monitor." Nervous laughter. "I  
guess I can understand why."  
"Leon..."

An hour later, one purple-haired elf opened the doors to ADPolice  
headquarters wondering if this was really a good idea. She thought her magic  
was behaving now, even after a few minor mishaps late at night, so she had  
given in to Leon's persuasive arguments. A pang of guilt also prodded her on.  
She still wore the clothes that had been conjured, more out of fear of  
what might replace it than anything else. And one addition.  
A young female officer, who was on reception duty behind the transparent  
plastic, looked up to see who had come in, and stared. Darlene's unusual  
nature was not obvious due to two things. One was her long, flowing purple  
hair that hid her pointed ears nicely. Another was the pair of dark  
sunglasses she had created to hide her eyes. She felt silly; 'Elf Wearing  
Dark Shades Confesses to Crimes.' Yaright. Still, the movements of her taller  
and lithe new body were flowing and graceful, attracting unwanted eyes. And  
this was also the reason the girl at the desk was looking at her with an  
expression of mixed admiration and awe, something Darlene wasn't terribly  
comfortable with.  
She finally reached the clear, bullet-proof, plastic barrier and smiled.  
"Hi, I believe Inspector McNichol has arranged a visitor's pass for me?"  
Darlene said, wincing internally at the musical quality of her voice that she  
was unable to repress.  
The girl blinked once, then blushed crimson with embarrassment as she  
realized she had been blatantly staring at Darlene. "Right! Ah... just a  
second while I verify this... um...?" She looked up again, inquiringly.  
"Valanna. Valanna Ellantora" Darlene replied while sighing internally,  
giving the name she had made up and given to Leon to use. Yet another alias;  
she would need a list to keep track of them all at this rate.  
The girl blinked at the rather unusual name but typed it in anyway and  
got an affirmative response. "Okay, it'll take just a second."  
"No hurry," Darlene said, smiling once she thought about this whole  
conversation.  
Out of Darlene's sight, elevator doors opened and a man and a woman  
stepped out. The woman being stunningly attractive but with an angry scowl on  
her face. The man had to hurry to keep up with her as she stormed out of the  
elevator.  
"'We'll inform you if we find anything positive.' Hah!" the woman  
muttered bitterly. "Like what?!"  
"Calm down, bud. You aren't making things any better," Bochinski said,  
trying to calm his radically altered friend.  
They were at the doors when he finished and there Wadderson whirled  
angrily on his friend. "And HOW do you suggest I make things better?"  
"Buying a new wardrobe for one," her friend replied, pointing at the  
ill-fitting clothes she still wore upon her newly-curvaceous form. "The baggy  
look isn't in."  
Despite her negative feelings about her recent changes, Wadderson shook  
her head disbelievingly at her partner's comments. "Doesn't anything damn  
well faze you? I mean..." Her voice died.  
"Hey, it's a survival trait. If I let everything bother me, I'd be  
Boomer chow," Bochinski responded glibly, then noticed the wide-eyed look of  
shock on his altered partner's face. "What?"  
"It's HER!" she whispered.  
"Her?" Turning his head, he saw the elevator begin closing but not  
before he glimpsing a beautiful, purple-haired woman standing inside...  
Waitasec. PURPLE-haired? "Oh, shit," he said softly, finally recognizing the  
woman and knowing what he would see once he turned his head back to his  
partner. Twisting his head back around, he looked.  
He was right. 

Outside the building, a man picked up the phone in his parked car.  
"Someone matching the description just went into ADPolice," he reported  
to his superior. "Orders?"  
"Wait to make sure she stays there," came the prompt reply. "There may  
be some wait but you will be joined by more operatives. Under NO, and I mean  
NO circumstances do you make contact."  
"Understood. Out." 

"Leon, just who are we waiting for that's got you so tense?" Daley said,  
wondering what was going on. His partner had told him that someone important  
was coming to talk with them, but had been very tight-lipped about details on  
who the person might be.  
Leon looked up at his partner as he was sitting behind his desk and  
Daley standing beside it, and gave his red-headed friend a slightly uncertain  
smile that was supposed to reassure. It failed miserably. "I'm expecting  
someone who might give us more info on what happened last night."  
"Who?"  
"Ah..." Leon began, then stood up from his chair when he saw something.  
"She's just arrived."  
Daley turned around to the same direction Leon was looking, and his jaw  
almost dropped to the floor when he realized who had walked into the slightly  
busy room. She was wearing shades, hair concealed her ears, and wasn't  
wearing fantasy armour, but it was definitely the Elf. Wearing a visitor's  
pass?? As well as looking a lot less sure of herself and slightly nervous,  
Daley noted to himself, which was the only reason he wasn't shouting for  
everyone to clear the room.  
"I'm sure I'll love the story about how you managed this," Daley said in  
a low voice to Leon as the graceful movements of the Elf brought her closer  
to them. He hoped no one else would notice who had just waltzed in.  
Leon wasn't able to manage a retort before the Elf walked up to his  
desk, looking at the two detectives anxiously before settling on Leon. She  
hesitated for a moment before speaking. "Does he know?" she asked him, Leon  
shook his head and Daley's eyebrows rose as he wondered at the familiarity  
between the two. She turned to face Daley. "Okay then." She took a deep  
breath and began, "Daley, as my cover is blown, you deserve to know the whole  
truth. I am the elven High Lord for this planet and Leon is an undercover  
satyr, if you knew satyrs this would have been obvious. Our mission is to  
secure this world against the forces of the evil Grytophs. You know these  
magical beasts in their disguised forms as Boomers. Unfortunately, one of  
their High Potantors drove me temporarily insane after shattering my disguise  
and I went on a rampage after her. Now that I have returned to my senses, I  
see that we need help. We need you, Daley, to join the Yaniuu," she finished,  
trying to stifle her laughter at Leon's own surprised amusement and at  
Daley's stunned disbelief at what he had just heard.  
"Say WHAT?!" Daley exclaimed, incredulous.  
That did it. Darlene couldn't stop her laughter though she tried  
stifling it with her hands, Leon joined in a second later. Slowly it dawned  
on Daley that he'd been had.  
"I... I'm sorry," she managed to gasp out. "I just couldn't resist!"  
"That was bad, even for you, 'Valanna,'" Leon said, using the alias and  
grinning despite the reasons she had come here.  
"All right, all right, so I fell for that, but how do you know her,  
Leon?" Daley said, getting increasingly confused by their familiarity.  
Darlene's laughter died, and soberly her shades turned to him again.  
"You know me too, Daley. But last night I did more than breaking a table in  
half. I WAS insane; that much was true," she finished despondently looking  
down at the floor.  
It took a second for the reference to make sense to him, but when it did  
it hit him like a hammer on the head. "DAR..." he started to say, but she  
quickly put a finger on his lips, silencing him.  
"Please don't," she pleaded after taking her finger back. "I feel bad  
enough about last night."  
"Like what you did to Wadderson?" Leon said with a level tone.  
Darlene blinked. "Who?" she asked, confused.  
"Remember when two of my men were about to escort you?" he clarified,  
not able to completely suppress the anger he felt about that, but she still  
shook her head. He frowned, and Daley, recovering from the shock of finding  
out who the Elf really was, widened his eyes and shook his head minutely.  
Leon realized that Darlene actually didn't remember, and tried to backtrack.  
"Well, I'll go into that later but..."  
"No," Darlene interrupted fiercely, "I need to know what I did! It  
sounds bad but I don't remember what you're talking about!" She paled a  
little. "I didn't kill anyone, did I?" Before Leon could answer her there was  
a commotion at the large room's entrance.  
"YOU!!!!" a furious female voice screamed. Leon swore, recognizing the  
voice, and started around his desk. But the one who had shouted was already  
running straight for Darlene.  
Who had turned around, ready to defend herself, but froze at the sight  
of the transformed Wadderson. Memory flashed through her mind like a  
lightning bolt and if she had been pale before, she went bone-white as she  
remembered what she had done to the woman rushing her.  
Faster than those watching thought possible, the furious blonde  
barrelled right into the stunned elf. To everyone's amazement, they shattered  
Leon's desk with the force of impact and continued on to the wall where  
Darlene was slammed into the reenforced wall, making a crater in the  
structure. None of this fazed Wadderson, who was too deep in her own fury to  
notice what she had accomplished. She immediately started pummelling her  
opponent with rapid-fire punches to face and torso. "Changemeback!  
Changemebackchangemebackchangemeback!" Wadderson rapidly kept repeating over  
and over, tears she had refused to shed before now flowing freely.  
"Bud! Stop it!" Bochinski cried out, and tried to restrain his partner  
by gripping her shoulder. Blinded by fury, Wadderson swung a backhand at him,  
and connected with bone-crushing force. There was the sound of bones breaking  
and he flew backwards over the heads of the frozen audience to slam into the  
other side of the wall.  
Not comprehending what she had done, she turned back to the elf ready to  
begin again, but stopped.  
Despite Wadderson's obviously increased strength, Darlene seemed quite  
fine other than a few bruises and cuts on her face, which were already  
starting to fade for her new body was built far stronger than her normal one.  
Still, she had done nothing to defend herself and her eyes were closed for  
the glasses were crushed on the ground.  
"Damn you," the blonde grated, and she grabbed the elf, pulling her out  
of the hole they had made in the wall. Angrily, she shook the other at the  
shoulders. "Why aren't you fighting me!? Am I too far beneath your damn  
notice!?" she shouted.  
Darlene shook her head. "No," the captive whispered.  
"Look at me, damn you! Look me in the eyes!"  
Slowly, the elven face rose, and Darlene obeyed.  
Wadderson froze as the effect that had gripped everyone who saw  
Darlene's new eyes took hold. ALL her feelings rose to the fore, reducing the  
anger to merely one emotion of many. The feeling was indescribable as she  
continued to stare at Darlene's sad eyes, which were filling with tears.  
"I'm sorry," the elven woman said, a bead of moisture fell from one eye.  
"I wasn't myself when I did this to you." Her gaze lowered slightly. "And I  
don't think I can reverse it either because I think I remember doing...  
something to make it permanent. I know what I did was... wrong and that you  
probably hate me. I can understand that all too well. But I can only say that  
I am sorry." Between her hands she created another pair of dark glasses and  
put them on.  
That broke the eye contact, but Wadderson was slow to come out of her  
trance. She had looked into Darlene's eyes longer than anyone else and had  
begun to see something that appeared both wonderful and terrible. She dazedly  
wondered if it was good or bad that it was gone now. The elf's words came  
back to her. 'I can understand that all too well'? Did that mean...? Then  
Wadderson's eyes opened wide in horrified remembrance and realization.  
"Bochinski!!" she shouted, paling, remembering the sound of bones breaking.  
"Finally snap out of it, bud?" was her partner's concerned and  
unexpected reply. Wadderson whirled around and saw him in front of the  
audience of cops that had been watching the confrontation. Standing  
unsupported when he should have been a broken wreck.  
Stunned, Wadderson released the elf and slowly came over to the now  
grinning Bochinski. She stopped in front of him and looked at every part of  
his body. His clothes were a little bloodstained but that was it. "How...?"  
was all she was able to manage, indicating his unbroken body.  
He could only shrug helplessly, grinning. "Got me. I still feel sore  
though. Remind me never to spar with you when you're angry again."  
Before Wadderson could respond to that, the Chief arrived.  
"WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE?!?" he bellowed and every police officer  
in the room suddenly felt hesitant to explain what had happened.  
However, Darlene wasn't an officer and remembered that the Chief had  
insulted her a long time ago. Therefore... "We were having a little  
disagreement," she answered him sweetly, and caught him off-guard with her  
musical voice. "I phoned Mr. McNichol to apologize for last night, because it  
wasn't really my fault but I still felt sorry for all the damage I caused."  
She sighed dramatically, getting incredulous looks from everyone in the room,  
save Leon and Daley who were grinning slightly  
"And who the devil are you?" the Chief demanded, trying to get back the  
high ground he sensed he had lost.  
"Well.... People have been calling me the 'Elf,'" she grinned. "I wonder  
why?" she said, brushing back her hair to reveal her pointed ears.  
The Chief, however, was not so ready to believe this and he rounded on  
the grinning Leon. "McNichol! Are you still trying to get me to believe that  
crazy story of yours?! Elf, my ass!" He didn't notice Darlene's frown and the  
subsequent gesture she made. "It's all a crock of bullshit!"  
"Chief, I didn't lie before and I'm not lying now," Leon said, defending  
himself. "I..." He stopped talking and stared at the Chief's head.  
"'I' what, McNichol?" the Chief demanded, then noticed Leon's wondering  
stare. He then noticed his scalp felt... odd, like a half-forgotten memory  
trying to make itself known. Everyone was staring at him now, or rather, his  
head. The female, who had called herself the Elf, giggled. "What the  
hell...?" he wondered and reached up to feel the top of his head, and  
encountered much more hair than there had been ten minutes ago. Disbelieving,  
he used both hands to confirm that his hair, that had been absent from his  
head save that at the sides, was growing once more and was now beginning to  
gain respectable length.  
"Hair to the Chief?" the Elf said innocently, and grinned.  
"McNichol," the Chief said, voice level and hands still on his head.  
"Yes, sir?"  
"Take care of this case, and don't tell me anything more about it."  
"Ah...yes, sir."  
"I'm taking the rest of the day off." And with that, the Chief left.  
Daley released the breath he had been holding. "That went well," he  
commented.  
"Right," Leon said, unable to repress a chuckle. "Okay, Bochinski,  
Wadderson, and... Valanna, you'd better come with Daley and me to a more," he  
looked around at the interested observers, "private location." He looked at  
his destroyed desk and sighed. "Oh, well," he mourned.  
Darlene looked at him curiously, then shrugged and said,

"Damage done by fires of rage,  
Become undone at this my rhyme,  
Fury now contained in cage,  
Turning back the sands of time."

Before everyone's disbelieving eyes, the shattered pieces of Leon's desk  
reassembled themselves and reformed whole. The hole made in the wall pushed  
itself back out and plaster, like a puzzle, returned piece by piece to where  
it originally had been. Soon, not a trace of the damage done by Wadderson's  
attack remained.  
Leon stared for a long while, before saying, "Maybe we'd better hurry." 

"So you want me to repair the street?"  
"NO!"  
Darlene recoiled in her chair at Leon's vehement response. They had all  
moved into one of ADPolice's interrogation rooms and were all seated around  
the room's single table. Darlene and Leon on opposite ends; Daley and the two  
altered officers on the other two sides. "Do you need a megaphone to make  
that any louder?" she said, dripping sarcasm. "My ears ARE a little  
sensitive, Leon. Why not?"  
"Sorry, but what happened last night and that display in the office  
should be the limit." Wadderson shrank in her seat a little because the  
latter was mostly her fault. "There's no telling what more public display  
might do, even if you fix it enough people have seen the damage so that if it  
magically disappears they'll REALLY start wondering. Once they might  
disbelieve, twice..." He shook his head.  
"Getting back to closer topics," Bochinski said. "Just what DID you do  
to us two, miss?" He indicated the female Wadderson and himself.  
Darlene sighed. "I was operating more on instinct than any actual  
knowledge so I'm not sure HOW I did it, but what I actually did... I know  
something about that. It felt like poetic justice at the time, for I used the  
insult as the basis of what I did." Seeing the two's confused looks, she  
explained, "You said 'bitch'. A bitch is a female dog... or wolf. I said I  
split it in twain and I did. One part to shape Wadderson, another to shape  
Bochinski. I added my own changes to that of course, but I'm foggy on most."  
"Wait," Bochinski said. "I think I'm getting this. You split the meaning  
of the word bitch and made Wadderson female for the female half of the  
definition. But that leaves the other and I certainly don't look like a dog."  
"Wolf," Darlene softly corrected, "and I expanded on that."  
He shook his head. "I still don't get it."  
"Let's just say you only have to worry about silver bullets now, instead  
of normal ones," she said, hinting at the truth.  
"Wolf..." Bochinski's eyes widened as he finally realized what had been  
done to him. "WEREwolf!"  
"Bingo." She gave him a sad smile. "And don't worry, you have, should  
have anyway, full control over it so don't worry about going berserk when the  
moon is full." She considered him thoughtfully. "I'm not sure how powerful  
your healing abilities are but you recovered from broken bones pretty  
quickly."  
Bochinski was silent for a moment, absorbing this news, then said, "Will  
I be needing flea collars?" Darlene stared at him incredulously.  
Wadderson groaned, and whacked her partner lightly on the head. "That's  
the absolute least of your concerns, idiot!"  
"You never know..." he protested.  
"Oh, shut up!" she said, exasperated at her partner's lack of reaction  
to their predicament. "I didn't think of this at the time but knocking you  
THROUGH a desk is a little hard to swallow. How strong am I now? And how come  
I didn't notice it?"  
Darlene shrugged helplessly. "I have no idea to either question. I don't  
know how that happened. As to the second, I can only guess that somehow you  
must have been given the ability to control it."  
Leon stepped into the conversation then. "Alright then. You two," he  
said, pointing at the changed officers, "go down to the gym and find out what  
you can do." He held up a hand to stop their protests. "I know the docs said  
you should go home, but don't you think you'd feel better if you know more  
about what happened?" At their reluctant nods, he smiled. "Hey, at least  
you'll have an easier time against Boomers."  
Wadderson snorted. "Small consolation, sir," she said before she left  
the room, a thoughtful Bochinski behind.  
There was uncomfortable silence in the room for a minute after they  
left, then Leon cleared his throat. "Do you mind telling us what's going on?"  
"Leon, Daley," Darlene began, then sighed and began again. "I can't  
promise to tell you everything, but... I'll tell you what I can."  
"One thing," Leon interrupted. "Will this happen again?"  
"I didn't know this COULD happen in the FIRST place," Darlene snapped,  
frustrated. "It surprised me too and it only happened because Madagan got me  
so... so furious." She shook her head. "Now that I know I should be able to  
prevent it. I DON'T like losing control of myself," she stressed that before  
continuing, "and I'll be relieved when I change back."  
"Does Nene know?" Leon asked quietly.  
"Nene?" Darlene squeaked, caught off-guard. "Ah..."  
"She does," he said. It wasn't a question. Suspicion grew in him.  
"She didn't know I could cast magic!" Darlene protested. "Besides, I've  
had some trouble with my spells since I got tossed into this universe." She  
paused when she saw Daley's eyes widen at that piece of news. "Maybe I  
shouldn't have said that," she said weakly.  
Leon managed to ignore that last revelation. "Are you human?"  
"Yes!" She glared at his chuckle, flushing slightly. "Not that you could  
tell at the moment," she muttered. "Are you enjoying yourself?" she added  
with an ominous voice.  
"Well, I have to admit this is refreshing, in it's own weird way, now  
that I'm getting used to the concept."  
"Glad you think so," she sighed, putting elbows on knees and placed her  
chin on her palms.  
"What about the Knight Sabers and the Crystal Knight?"  
Darlene sighed internally; she'd better start acting (the word sounded  
better than lying) or else Leon would start finding out more than she wanted  
him to know. "The Knight Sabers know the Crystal Knight and the Crystal  
Knight knows me."  
Leon exchanged looks with Daley. "How do you know him?"  
"Because he comes from the same universe I do, except he has psionic  
instead of magical powers. Because the same thing that was SUPPOSED to have  
killed us changed us instead and gave us our powers. Because in that way  
we're... related in a strange manner, having both survived the impossible.  
Because while he made his armour, I enchanted it to give it its power, and if  
you say anything about 'aiding a vigilante', Leon, I'll turn you into a  
frog."  
"You mean a toad," Daley corrected.  
Darlene gave him a withering glare, felt even through the dark glasses,  
then stood up. "I could talk all day, Leon, but I'd rather do it when I'm  
back to normal. Besides, I think you'll be busy with the two I... changed."  
Sadness flickered on her face before she got a hold of herself. "I'll be  
staying at home for the next two days."  
"Before you go," Leon said, "what did you do about Genom's problem?"  
"Genom? What are... you... Oh no, not again," she moaned. "What did I  
DO?! Did I block out everything?!" she cried out, then slumped her shoulders.  
"You weren't exactly yourself," Daley said soothingly.  
"Yeah. Small consolation." Darlene shook her head and braced herself.  
"What did I do, Leon?"  
"You mentioned something about a disintegration spell," he stopped when  
she staggered a bit, the memory returning to her, but continued when she  
waved a hand, "but before that you made some kind of monster and sent it  
somewhere. That's about it. Are you all right?" he said, concerned, as all  
color drained from her face.  
"Yeah," she said, weakly. If he survived, Malkon was going to be very,  
very pissed. Great. "I'd better get going. To Genom first, I suppose."  
"Are you sure?"  
"Do you want Genom tower, or the biggest damn parking lot in Mega-  
Tokyo?"  
Leon and Daley turned to each other and exchanged a startled look. "Is  
what you did THAT strong?" Leon asked, feeling slightly numb.  
She gave him a long, sober look, answering him. 

Chapter Twenty-Nine  
\------------------- 

"You didn't have to escort me out of the building," Darlene protested as  
she, Leon, and Daley walked out of the elevator.  
"We're still fixing Headquarters from an attack a few days ago," Leon  
cast a wry look at Darlene, "we don't want anything else happening to it."  
She stuck her tongue out at him as they passed through the glass doors  
outside.  
Daley was the first to notice, and stopped. "Hey, Leon."  
"What?" Then he saw too, and swore. "Damn."  
"What's the..." Darlene began, then saw the man in a suit and dark  
glasses who practically had 'Genom' stamped on him walking across the street,  
heading for them. "Oh."  
The three stayed where they were and warily let the Genom messenger come  
to them. When he got within a meter, he stopped and bowed to the elf, which  
surprised Darlene. "On behalf of my superior, I humbly ask that you please  
come with us to Genom tower."  
Exchanging looks with Leon and Daley, Darlene inquired, "Superior?"  
"Yes," the man waved to where several cars were parked. One of the car  
doors opened and a familiar figure stepped out.  
"I'm surprised SHE came," Leon said quietly.  
Darlene wasn't sure what she should be feeling seeing Madagan again.  
Certainly she had a range of options to choose from, but... there was still  
that matter of the spell on Genom tower.  
"I guess I've got my ride," she said, sighing. 

Needless to say, it was an uncomfortable trip with only the two of them  
riding together in the back of the limo. Darlene was still angry about the  
way Madagan had treated her, but was feeling guilty over what she had done  
after, even knowing Madagan might have killed her. Madagan, on the other  
hand, knew she needed Darlene's help to counteract whatever was destroying  
Genom tower, but realized she still felt afraid of the elven woman and was  
angry with herself about that, even though she had good reason. They stayed  
silent the whole way, with only occasional glances at the other.  
Finally they arrived at the tower and both got out of the vehicle.  
Darlene looked up, and up, and up, at the massive structure. "You know,  
it really doesn't need to be so BIG. Get a neckache just trying to see the  
top. Sheesh!"  
Madagan blinked at her, surprised at the comment, then smiled slightly,  
surprising herself. "It's supposed to be a reflection of how much importance  
Genom has in the world," she said dryly but with some pride.  
"SOMEone has a big ego," Darlene muttered. Then giggled at something  
that occurred to her. When Madagan frowned at her, puzzled, she said, "Um, I  
don't know if anyone's ever thought of this, but if you imagine Mega-Tokyo as  
the face of the world, then Genom tower could be seen as one big zit."  
"Really," Madagan said in icy tones.  
"And I might be the facial cleanser," Darlene continued, imitating the  
Genom exec's cold manner. A look of sudden fear arose on Madagan's face, but  
the elven mage sighed and shook her head. "Don't take things so personally.  
I didn't mean to insult you. Lighten up, Miss Doom and Gloom." Then she  
placed a hand over her face, and grimaced. "Look who's talking. Well, at  
least I'M making an effort." She sniffed haughtily.  
Madagan pursed her lips, uncertain how to respond. Then started walking  
for the tower entrance. "We'd better hurry," she said, not looking back  
behind her.  
Darlene quickly arrived at her side. "Sourpuss." Madagan's back muscles  
twitched. "No wonder I was thinking of doing that to you when I was insane."  
Pausing as she swung open the door, Madagan said, "Doing what?"  
"I was toying with the idea of turning you into a panther. Purple fur,  
jewelled collar. The works. You would've been my puddy tat," Darlene said,  
coyly sweet, lightly tapping a suddenly pale Madagan on the nose with a  
smile.  
The purple-haired exec jerked away, face slightly pale, and fled through  
the entrance.  
"What? The idea of becoming a cat not to your liking?" Darlene said  
sarcastically, following close behind. "Oh, boo hoo. Tsk tsk. I'm SO  
heartbroken. What's the matter? Don't like feeling heeeeelpless?" she sniped  
wickedly at Madagan.  
Who furiously turned around, face wrathful from Darlene's remarks. "WILL  
YOU STOP THAT!!" she shouted, finally fed up. Several people around them  
looked at her, startled, and those who knew Madagan's cool reputation,  
shocked. None were more surprised than Madagan when Darlene glided  
uncomfortably close to her and wrapped slender, but strong, arms around her  
body, drawing them close together.  
"But I don't want to," Darlene purred seductively, Madagan's eyes flew  
wide open, horrified. "You really are a very attractive woman, Madagan. We  
should let bygones be bygones. And maybe take things a little further, hmmm?"  
she said suggestively and dissolved her dark shades, letting them see eye to  
eye at last.  
Madagan, on the verge of panic, wondered momentarily why the elven woman  
had been covering her eyes, but when she began to see deeper things in the  
purple orbs that unnaturally evoked feelings within herself she jerked her  
head away, not wanting to fall under some spell. "Let me go! Have you gone  
mad again?" she cried, struggling to get out of the elf's too-solid embrace  
and trying not to look at those eyes.  
Darlene blinked.  
Shook her head.  
Then realized who she was holding, and why.  
"AAAAHHHHHH!!!!" If she had hugged a white hot flame, Darlene would have  
removed her arms less quickly than from around Madagan. Stepping back  
quickly, she hugged herself tightly and shivered violently. "W-What the HECK  
am I DOING?!?"  
Backing up slightly and regarding her nervously, Madagan said, "That's  
what I'd like to know."  
"My magic isn't acting up anymore," Darlene said to herself, getting  
over the shock of what she had tried to do, "but now my emotions are! Damn!"  
she swore angrily. "I thought I didn't have to worry about anything else!"  
"This is because of your change?" Madagan asked warily.  
"No, I always try seducing women who've tried to kill me," Darlene  
replied caustically, and Madagan's cheeks colored slightly. "Of course it  
is!" Trying to get a hold of herself Darlene took a deep breath to calm down  
and let her arms down to her sides. "I'd better remove that spell then leave  
as soon as I can. Elevator?" she asked Madagan, creating a new pair of  
glasses, strangely difficult to do but she dismissed it, and wearing them.  
"This way," Madagan said, and started walking again, "lover."  
Darlene nodded, following her, then did a double-take when she realized  
what Madagan had said.  
"Great," she muttered sourly, "NOW she gets a sense of humor."  
In front of the elven woman, Madagan smiled at the comment. 

"Y'know," Darlene commented as she stared at what her spell was doing,  
"I didn't think so at the time but this is REAL disturbing."  
She and Madagan, along with a few technicians nervously watching at the  
sides, were at the very top of Genom tower. The top was mostly a large flat  
platform. However, a huge spherical pit was being gouged from the center of  
the metal platform, and if you watched carefully you could see it slowly  
growing.  
"It's continuing to accelerate," Madagan informed the creator of the  
destructive spell.  
"Just great. Well, better stop it," Darlene said and raised her hands.  
She began to cast a spell to nullify the destruction, but staggered after a  
moment, almost collapsing.  
"What's wrong?" Madagan asked in a worried manner, for the pit WAS  
starting to gain worrisome speed.  
"Can't cast a spell," Darlene panted.  
"WHAT?!" Madagan screamed. "WHY NOT?!"  
"I've been up since early YESTERDAY morning, though I don't feel tired,  
I've channelled raw magical energy of a degree I've never handled before, got  
rid of it in an abrupt manner, and have been casting minor spells since then.  
I guess I should've wondered why I'm not flat on my back, not just unable to  
cast a coherent spell. I'm almost at my limit." She looked worried as she  
contemplated the growing pit.  
"Can't you think of anything?"  
Darlene paused. "Maybe..." she mused aloud, then held out a hand. A  
moment later her sword appeared.  
"What good will that do?"  
"My sword is linked to me and was made to act as a focus for spells,"  
Darlene explained. "I can still direct power into IT and destroy the  
disintegration spell with a burst of greater power. I think." She frowned.  
"This is purely by instinct, but I think it'll work. My instincts have gotten  
a lot better in this form, but in any case I suggest everyone get back. This  
might not be very neat."  
"Do we have a choice?" Madagan dryly replied, and waved all personnel  
away from the ever-growing pit.  
Darlene didn't reply, she was too busy concentrating. Suddenly, her  
sword blade burst into purple flames and, after flipping the blade so that it  
pointed down, with both hands gripping the handle leaped high and fell, the  
burning blade's point first, into the exact center of the pit.  
From Madagan's viewpoint, Darlene vanished from her sight, followed by  
a moment's silence. Then the pit vanished as a burst of intense violet light  
erupted out of the crater.  
KKKKK-TOOOOOMMMM! 

A slim hand came over the edge of the now-glassy pit, dragging Darlene  
up with it. "I'm definitely staying home for a while after this," she  
muttered as she came over the lip of the hole. She had been wondering why she  
hadn't felt tired before; now she knew as she felt weariness like a big black  
cloud approaching on the horizon. Darlene had told the others that it would  
be two days before she changed back, but that was when she hadn't cast many  
spells. Somehow she must have retained some kind of residual charge from the  
Wild magic. If she had done nothing it WOULD have been two days. Now...  
"Stop right there, girl," someone, no, she knew that voice, said.  
Darlene looked up for the first time, and swore explosively. What  
remained at the top of the tower was now practically filled with wall-to-  
wall Boomers, both the combat models, BU-12s and the more general purpose  
55-Cs. Quincy was the one who had spoken, but given his preference for  
android duplicates she highly doubted he was actually here. Madagan didn't  
look too happy about this development, a surprise in itself, from concern for  
Darlene or for the Chairman she didn't know.  
"An impressive display of power you gave us last night, and today as  
well," Quincy commented.  
Darlene was not in the mood for talking with Quincy, not now, all she  
wanted was to get back to her store and damned if she was going to put up  
with this bullshit any longer. Her patience quota was gone. "MR. Chairman,"  
she grated out, Madagan stepped back a bit, having a better idea of what was  
going to happen than Quincy, "I'm sorry I almost destroyed your tower, even  
though it was pretty much Genom's fault. But now, I just want to go home and  
relax, and if you think this bunch of Boomers is impressing me one bit,  
you're dead wrong. If you WANT to discuss something with me, do it later."  
That said, ignoring all the androids around her, she began heading for the  
elevator.  
Quincy frowned, and gestured at two blue 55-Cs. They ran to grab the  
elven woman.  
Darlene didn't halt her forward momentum, but her sword arm BLURRED when  
her would-be captors got within striking range. She might be unable to cast  
spells at the moment, but her physical abilities had been greatly improved in  
her new form and her sword was a very formidable weapon. In effect, it was  
akin to putting a hand into a food processor.  
Totally ignoring the stunned Quincy as the pieces of sliced Boomer fell  
behind her, she nodded to Madagan. "Shall we go?" she said as she passed the  
gaping Genom exec.  
"Sir?" Madagan hesitantly asked her superior.  
"Get that... woman out of the tower," Quincy replied, having no  
illusions that someone who dispatched two regular Boomers that swiftly would  
have much trouble avoiding and destroying the rest.  
"Yes, sir." Madagan hurried after the departing mage.  
Not at all angry, Quincy looked over the remains of the two destroyed  
Boomers. "Impressive indeed..." he mused quietly. "So. Magic." The Chairman  
thought for a moment.  
Then chuckled deeply.

It was about an hour later when Darlene and Madagan arrived at the  
magic-user's store. Darlene heaved a sigh of relief and was about to open the  
door when Madagan stopped her with a hand gesture.  
"Wait." It took her a few seconds to compose herself, but Madagan asked,  
"I know you must have SOMETHING to do with the Crystal Knight. Will you tell  
me?"  
Darlene grimaced, another 'my brother the Knight' story, but nodded. "If  
it'll get Genom off our backs, sure." She ran a hand through her purple hair  
before starting. "I guess we're kinda like brother and sister, in a way. We  
both survived something that should have killed us but changed our bodies and  
gave us our powers instead. Don't try finding it," she emphasized flatly,  
"it's not even in this universe. I, and he you call the Crystal Knight,  
arrived in your universe involuntarily. I started a shop to keep myself busy  
and support myself, he likes fighting Boomers." Darlene shrugged at Madagan's  
disbelieving stare. "It's true. And if I can change into a more powerful  
form then he probably can too. I'd remember that if I were you." The elven  
woman made a mental note to remember that sudden notion herself. "Oh, yeah,  
while he made his armor, I enchanted it to give it its power. There's no  
technology involved; even if you got his suit you wouldn't get anything from  
it. Anything else?" She arched an elven eyebrow.  
"No," Madagan said, trying to digest the information she was given.  
"Good, because if Genom comes even SEMI-near to my shop again I'll be  
REAL pissed." Darlene grinned rather nastily at the Genom exec, past events  
giving force behind her words, before opening the door and leaving Madagan to  
dwell in her own juices; SHE just wanted some truly desired sleep.  
Opening the first door, she felt a sudden, yet intense, twinge of pain  
that seemed to have originated somewhere in the vicinity of her guts. It left  
her momentarily breathless and pale, but she quickly shook it off. "Damn,"  
she whispered, feeling dread, "I hope I didn't push myself TOO far." She  
opened the second door rather quickly.  
Anri was the first to see her and almost shouted her name aloud, then  
remembered the former red-head's changes and rushed over angrily instead.  
Seeing Anri move led Sylvie to notice Darlene too, and the brown-haired  
sexaroid frowned. Both their reactions left the transformed mage somewhat  
bewildered. She was certainly surprised when normally mild Anri gripped her  
wrist firmly and near-dragged Darlene over to Sylvie.  
"Anri, what...?!?" Darlene began, but Sylvie cut her off.  
"WHAT were you doing?! You shouldn't have gone out like THAT!" the  
taller sexaroid said, whispering furiously and giving Darlene a glare hot  
enough to melt steel, Anri nodding fiercely in agreement.  
The mage wilted a bit under the double barrage. "I had to do a few  
things..." she said weakly. "They just couldn't wait."  
Sylvie didn't let up her glare. "We were ALL worried when Anri went up  
and found that you weren't there!" When Darlene's eyes widened in  
realization, she nodded. "Of COURSE we called Sylia and the others; we  
thought you might have gone to one of their places. Imagine OUR surprise when  
Nene, who was at work today, reported the rather shocking news that you were  
at ADPolice! She's not very happy, and neither are the rest of us. As a  
matter of fact, Priss is upstairs, keeping guard in case you showed up there.  
We have all been worried sick considering what happened to you!"  
"I'm sorry," Darlene replied, looking down at the floor slightly  
ashamed. "I just thought...that if I left secretly then came back you  
wouldn't worry. There WERE things I HAD to do."  
Sylvie frowned, noting something wrong with Darlene's explanation. "If  
you got past us without us knowing why didn't you do the same thing you used  
before?"  
"I...can't," Darlene answered reluctantly.  
"You can't? Why not?" Anri demanded.  
"I overextended myself doing the things I did and..." Darlene's eyes  
opened wide with shock when a greater wave, not a twinge this time, of pain  
hit. She staggered forwards and a startled Sylvie and Anri caught her.  
"...And I think I'll soon be making a full payment for what I did; a little  
earlier than the two days I predicted," she finished weakly as she got her  
breath back.  
"Upstairs! Quickly!" a worried Sylvie ordered Anri and the two, with one  
of Darlene's arms around each sexaroid, dragged her upstairs.  
Priss had been sprawled on Darlene's couch, but quickly got off when she  
saw the two dragging Darlene up. "What the hell happened?" she demanded.  
The elven woman weakly laughed. "An exhausted elf, that's what." Her  
arms and legs were beginning to feel like lead, a bad sign. While she could,  
she tore off her glasses and looked at Priss. "See anything there?"  
Priss was puzzled. "No, not like last time."  
"Oh, shit."  
Those were the last words Darlene got out before the main wave of pain  
that the previous two were mere heralds of arrived. She jerked, nearly  
throwing Sylvie and Anri off her, then went absolutely rigid, eyes wider from  
the sudden pain than they could normally go. All her nerves were afire;  
muscles screamed in protest; bones pulsing in agony; and her skin felt like  
she was being flayed alive. Every cell in her body was in torment and it was  
only the sheer intensity that kept her from screaming like a banshee. Even  
so, she did manage a high pitched whistle that made her friends wince, not  
that she was able to notice them at the moment.  
"Jesus Christ!" Priss whispered in horror, sensing how much pure agony  
her friend was going through. Darlene was staring at nothing while her body  
vibrated like a guitar string freshly plucked. Sweat was beading on face and  
neck, and tears were beginning to fall from her eyes. And to Priss the worst  
thing about it was that the only thing she could do was wait.  
Sylvie and Anri were just as horrified, but Anri noticed something  
first. "She's starting to change back!" she cried, and indeed, the elven  
features were disappearing. Her hair became shorter and lost color, eyes  
turning bright blue once more. They had seen this before but Priss hadn't,  
and the singer was stunned at the rapid age reversal. Gaining speed,  
Darlene's body became younger and younger until she was as she was before.  
And collapsed.  
Priss caught Darlene, swiftly grabbing her before the once-again  
red-head fell and absently noted that the mage's clothes had changed to match  
her size. Looking at her friend's face, she was more than a little dismayed  
to note how gaunt it was and just how LIGHT the body she held had become.  
"Fuck! We have to get her to Sylia!" 

Existence has many forces that beings, intelligent or not, may use or be  
used by. They sometimes interact in odd ways, especially when uncontrolled.  
Such was the case when a powerful crystal with great magical forces attuned  
to space/time for the purpose of transportation, but used for containment of  
an evil spirit, exploded. It connected two universes together for a brief  
instant, a mage was caught in that convergence and crossed over, then the  
tear closed.  
But for a time, that uncontrolled tear affected a weakness in the walls  
of reality for those two universes. And, with uncanny luck unique to him, a  
traveller managed to step right into that weakness, such was the power of his  
aura and innate ability for ki-travel(an ability used by some beings in other  
universes but unknown to the traveller who uses it unconsciously).  
The transition was unnoticed by him, as it appeared seamless to his  
perception; his ability was fine-tuned, if uncontrolled. He left his universe  
mere hours after the mage, but he also arrived at a slightly different time  
and space compared to the first traveller and so he suddenly appeared in the  
forested regions outside Mega-Tokyo a day after the mage's collapse. The  
weakness healed itself immediately after, trapping him in this second  
universe.  
The bandanna-wearing traveller looked up and sighed.  
I wonder where I am now, Ryouga wondered.

Darlene came to semi-consciousness, moaning, wondering what had  
happened. Her eyelids were being stubborn, crazy-glue stubborn to be  
accurate, and couldn't open them at the moment. Then she felt that there were  
several presences around her, and mumbled, "Wha...'m I?"  
"That sounded like two questions, so I shall answer both," Sylia's  
familiar voice replied. "What happened is that it appears you badly  
overexerted yourself to the point of unconsciousness for about, despite an  
I.V. feed, five days. Where you are should be familiar as you have visited  
the infirmary in Doctor Raven's garage before, as I could not risk normal  
hospitals with your unique metabolism and body structure."  
"Oh," was all Darlene could say, still feeling very weak. She tried  
again to open her eyes, and succeeded. There was Sylia, smiling faintly at  
her at the foot of the bed, Linna, by the side of the bed, and Nene, beside  
Linna. Both of them were smiling too, Nene's eyes being oddly bright for some  
reason.  
"God, this week's been pure pain. I REALLY don't want to do that again,"  
Darlene moaned, then smiled weakly, "but thanks for helping, even when I  
upset you guys before I... um... collapsed," she finished, a little abashed.  
"Hey," Linna said, shrugging off the worry, "at least you're almost back  
to normal now."  
"Right, a male psionist/female mage combo in one is normal," Darlene  
mumbled, then sighed with a small smile of her own. "I guess that's normal  
for me." She shuddered. "I hope I don't have to go through anything like THAT  
anytime soon."  
"Priss described it; I can imagine," Sylia said, sympathetically.  
"Did it hurt as much as after you beat that Overlord thing from Hell?"  
Nene asked, wide-eyed.  
The recovering mage almost bolted upright, but was still too weak to do  
so. "Wha...?!" Darlene said, very much surprised. "How did you...??" Her gaze  
immediately swivelled to Sylia, who was quite unrepentant.  
"It was about time," Sylia pointed out, "so I told them."  
"Great," Darlene sighed, going limp. "As a matter of fact, Nene, no, it  
hadn't been this bad because I hadn't had the chance to overdo it." Sylia was  
an excellent interrogator, a fact the bedridden red-head had found out when  
telling her story, and now she regretted it.  
"So you actually did fight demons from Hell?" Linna said, disbelieving.  
"Yeah. Trust me, it's a pleasure I'd rather forgo. With one exception,"  
she amended, remembering Malkon. She saw Nene's awed look, and grew  
irritated. "Nene, if you keep looking at me like that I swear I'll create a  
spell that will embarrass you a LOT. When you're working, at that. Static  
hair? Glued shoes to the floor? Vanishing undergarments?" she finished with  
an evil grin when she saw Nene blush beet red.  
"Darlene! You wouldn't!"  
"I WILL if you keep looking at me with starry eyes. I'm still ME. You  
just...know a lot more about me now. Which," she added with a twinkle in her  
eyes, "doesn't mean we can't have a little fun now that my spells work  
properly now." Nene perked up at that, Linna too a little.  
"Darlene..." Sylia said, frowning ominously.  
"What?" the mage replied, looking innocently at the Knight Sabers'  
leader, trying to make her tired face as cute as possible. "I'll be the soul  
of discretion. Really, I will. And," Darlene turned serious, "I could use  
some laughs for a change, Sylia."  
Sylia sighed, giving in. "Very well. But only when you're recovered and  
NOTHING in public. Is that clear?"  
"Crystal," Darlene agreed.  
"Now sleep! Priss will come later to feed you."  
Darlene felt a chill as she remembered something. "Sylia..."  
"What?"  
"When you told my story... Did you mention when Malkon tried to... ma...  
ma..." she couldn't finish the word but Sylia understood.  
"Yes."  
"Oh, God. Priss is gonna TORMENT me over that," Darlene wailed. Linna  
and Nene burst out laughing at the horror in her voice.  
"Consider it an...incentive to get better."  
Darlene's glare told her what she thought of that.

Malkon was not in a good mood.  
He wasn't even in a bad mood.  
No, what he was experiencing was a furiously ANGRY mood as he looked  
over the ruin of his castle from his favorite, mostly-intact study chair. The  
upper portion of the backrest had been sheered off by what looked like a set  
of very large claws. It would take weeks to fix everything that had been  
destroyed by that... THING.  
The arch-demon suppressed a shudder; it had been a near thing, and it  
was all the more enraging that he had so dismissed the powers of that golem,  
or whatever it had been.  
He remembered it vividly...  
...Casting the lightning bolt spell at the creation and watching with  
amazement as the bolt cascaded harmlessly around the metal frame...  
...The thing turning towards him, freezing momentarily, as if finding  
its prey at last, before sending beams of energy laced with chaotic magic!  
The name most beings used for such magic was Wild, and it played havoc with  
spells. Malkon remembered this later as dodging the ravenous beams had been  
of a more immediate priority at the time...  
...Having 'scented' him, the thing had dogged him relentlessly in his  
frantic retreat, sending bolts of energy that tore through his shields like  
wet paper and trying to disembowel the arch-demon whenever it got the  
opportunity. His own spells affected it minimally and not for long...  
...The chase through the levels of his castle. If he had been watching  
and not being the one chased Malkon was sure it would have been highly  
amusing. It wasn't like he could leave his domain, THAT move would have been  
as disastrous as waiting for the thing to get him as the other arch-demons  
would relish him being helpless and easy prey...  
Malkon sourly looked at the doors to this chamber; every one had a large  
humanoid-shaped hole in them, and that had been done mere seconds after he  
had slammed them behind himself. He hadn't been that terrified since his  
first millennium of existence.  
Then his gaze turned to a sword that laid upon the remarkably untouched  
table in front of him. The thing had nearly cornered him when he had come  
across the sword, and for some reason picked it up.  
Malkon examined the weapon, remembering its 'feel.' It wasn't entirely  
magical and he hadn't known about it being in that room; it shouldn't  
have been in his castle at all. No, not quite agical, he thought, it has  
the taint of Order about it.  
It certainly proved that to him ,for it had guided his hand with prefect  
precision to strike the monstrous creation directly into the 'chest' region.  
The weapon's orderly energies had clashed with the wild forces in the golem,  
which without a true will of its own had little chance of resisting. The  
sword had completely assimilated and absorbed the raw power of the metal  
thing, leaving an empty inanimate shell behind.  
Where the sword had come from was a mystery to be solved. Even if it had  
saved him, he disliked hidden allies. Especially one who obviously dealt with  
Order energy, which was not one of his realms of experience.  
But where that creation of Wild Magic had come from...  
THAT being would soon find him/her/itself finding out how angry they had  
made a certain arch-demon of Hell. 

Chapter Thirty  
\-------------- 

After the elf incident, Darlene made the fastest recovery she had made  
yet, for she had been absolutely correct in her assumption that Priss would  
tease her mercilessly about that...encounter with Malkon in Kirin's castle.  
This kept on for over a week until, as Twister, he joined one of the Knight  
Sabers' meetings.  
"Priss, I think you can STOP doing that," he said firmly, finally fed up  
with the amused singer's comments. Priss smirked from her chair.  
"Why? I thought brides ENJOYED weddings," she said, grinning as he  
narrowed his eyes angrily. He started to say something, but Sylia interrupted  
him.  
"I have to agree with Twister, Priss. However entertaining," she smiled  
at his long-suffering expression, "it's about time you stopped."  
"Oh, alright," Priss griped.  
"Thank you," Sylia said, sighing at the grateful, and overdone, bows  
Twister was giving her, much to the others' amusement. "Now then, shall we  
start the meeting?" She paused. "And Twister, sit in a couch or chair, not  
air."  
Grinning, Twister unfolded from the crosslegged sitting position he had  
been levitating in, repressing the impulse to say 'om om om', and plunked  
down beside Linna on the couch. "Sorry," he said, unrepentant. "All my  
repressed good humor is arising today."  
"'Good' humor? From whose point of view?" Priss sniped, but Twister just  
looked up innocently at the ceiling.  
"Ahem! Shall we begin?" Sylia repeated with a trace of annoyance, and  
the two quieted down. Nene, Linna, and Mackie, who had been watching Twister  
and Priss, smothered laughter and focused their attention on Sylia. "While we  
have not been hired by anyone, yet, I noticed yesterday that an odd thing has  
been occurring recently." The others exchanged puzzled looks. "Nene has told  
me that many personal 55-C Boomers, here and there, started disappearing over  
a week ago but the disappearances stopped as of the day before yesterday."  
Nene piped up. "I told Sylia about this on the third day. What's  
puzzling ADPolice is the manner of their disappearance and how it's being  
done over such a large area. Almost every sector has reported theft and  
that's making it impossible to narrow down where they've been taken."  
"Yes," Sylia agreed, "but another thing started up a day after the  
Boomer thefts stopped. I've been told that quite a few homeless have also  
begun disappearing, with no sign of a struggle taking place. The most notable  
fact is that they all had semi-violent to outright hostile tendencies."  
"That's weird," Linna observed.  
"Sylia," Twister said, "how many 55-C's were stolen?"  
"Nene tells me that over 28 were reported stolen." Priss whistled at the  
number. "That number may be inaccurate given that some people might not want  
it known that they had a Boomer and not reported to ADPolice."  
"That's practically a small army," Twister observed.  
"Yes, an accurate assumption given that those homeless might also be  
used as solders, if the right drugs are given," Sylia said darkly. Everyone  
turned grim when she mentioned that.  
Mackie stood up, consternation on his face. "Oh, sis, I forgot to bring  
the data you wanted. It's still in my room so it'll be a few minutes to find  
it," he said apologetically and Sylia nodded.  
"Mind if I join you? I've been wanting to ask you about your Highway  
Star for a while," Twister asked with a smile.  
"Sure," Mackie said, pleased to have a chance to talk about his  
creation, and they both left the room.  
Four pairs of eyes watched them go. "He seems fully recovered," Sylia  
observed. Priss' snort agreed with her.  
"I still have a hard time believing all that he can do," Linna sighed,  
slumping back into the couch.  
"Darlene's still Darlene," Nene said, frowning at Linna. "She's the same  
person that we've known for almost two years."  
"Why do you keep calling Twister, Darlene? That's his female name,"  
Linna asked curiously.  
Nene huffed, a little red-faced. "She was Darlene when we met, and I'll  
always think of her as Darlene when she's not in front of me," she said  
primly.  
"That's one way of avoiding confusion," Priss said, grinning. "Besides,  
while he can be a pain, he's been DAMN useful at times. But don't tell him I  
said that," she warned after a quick glance to the door. "By the way, have  
you heard him singing while he's Darlene?"  
"No. Why?" Linna asked.  
"First time she did my jaw almost hit the floor," Priss confessed, and  
everyone stared at her. That Priss had admitted THAT meant Darlene must have  
impressed the hell out of the singer. "Took everything I had not to show it.  
SHE thought nothing was different, but MAN, she was singing in a completely  
different way!"  
"How so?" Sylia asked curiously.  
"Well, when he sings as Twister he's totally precise about the WAY you  
sing a song, but he can't seem to put much emotion into it. I admit he  
learned damned quick but he was missing something." Then Priss exhaled  
heavily. "However, as DARLENE she wasn't as precise but..." she struggled to  
express what she knew in words the others would understand, "...the...the  
FEELING was there, and STRONG. And that's what the more popular singers do;  
pour what they're feeling into their songs. Like I do," Priss said  
offhandedly, and no one objected knowing she spoke truth. "It's spooky. After  
hearing that, I waited until Darlene became Twister again and asked him to  
sing. And the feeling just wasn't there anymore. He doesn't even REALIZE a  
damn thing!" she said, frustrated.  
"As Darlene he DOES feel things more intensely, Priss," Sylia told the  
singer. "That must be the reason."  
"It's just plain bizarre," Priss complained.  
"Sylia!" Twister shouted, catching their attention for he sounded  
slightly angry. "Could you get everyone down to Mackie's room?"  
Surprised and puzzled, the four women looked at each other then headed  
for Mackie's room. When they arrived, they found Twister frowning at one of  
Mackie's very large posters. Sylia's brother was smiling nervously at his  
sister and looking like he wanted to be far away from where he was. Sylia  
walked a little ways into the room while the others looked on from the  
hallway. "What's the matter, Twister?"  
"Oh, nothing really," he said in a tone that meant exactly the opposite.  
"It's just that when I walked in and saw this poster I noticed something odd  
about the picture."  
Sylia looked at the poster. It was an image of an old Mandelbrot fractal  
in full color, but other than that nothing seemed odd about it and she told  
Twister so.  
"My senses are slightly more acute, including sight," he explained. "The  
thing seemed off-color somehow, as if something was interfering with it. I  
can't explain it better than that. I touched it, and when I removed my finger  
there appeared to be another image underneath."  
"Another image?" Sylia wondered, glancing at her brother, suspicion  
beginning to form. "Of what?" she asked.  
Twister didn't say a word, he just placed his hand on the poster. After  
fifteen seconds, a ripple beginning at the hand cascaded outwards and removed  
what was the image of the fractal, replacing it with another one.  
The Knight Sabers stared at what was shown.  
It was Darlene. WITHOUT any clothes on.  
"I figure this was when you gave me those tests, Sylia. The background  
was altered, I've NEVER been in THAT bedroom," he said, rather forcefully and  
not surprising given the room pictured. Then the fractal image came back,  
obscuring the true picture underneath. All female eyes swivelled to the  
sweating Mackie.  
"Mackie," Sylia said ominously, and her brother swallowed. "How did you  
do this?"  
"Ah... I have a friend who has access to temperature sensitive plastics.  
Y'know, like the ones billboards use to change advertisements according to  
outside weather?"  
"You better not have done US," Priss said, the glint in her eye shining  
in Linna and Nene's eyes as well.  
"Ahem," Twister said, catching their attention. And the three posters he  
had managed to touch while all eyes were on Mackie revealed the images  
underneath, backgrounds similarly altered. Nene, Linna, and Priss all flushed  
at the sight of themselves au naturale, then three pairs of menace-filled  
eyes swivelled in unison to Mackie, who was backing away nervously. "And,  
Sylia, there's another one of these posters behind the door," Twister added,  
smiling grimly as Sylia's icy gaze joined her fellow Knight Sabers. Her  
brother gulped, fearing what was to come.  
Roasting time.  
Mackie marshmallows tonight. 

AN HOUR LATER... 

"Can you BELIEVE that Mackie?" Darlene growled as she, Linna, and Nene  
walked downtown after the meeting. "I mean... REALLY!"  
Linna and Nene exchanged surprised and amused looks. The contrast  
between Twister's initial chilly anger and Darlene's current exasperated  
state was almost hilarious. They had all opted to wait a few days before  
doling out Mackie's punishment. Anticipation torture. Sylia's younger brother  
had paled when Twister offered to help any of the others with their ideas;  
the young scientist-mechanic knew all about the powers the  
half-psionist/half-mage had at his command and, even worse, Twister's sense  
of humor.  
"Actually, we should have expected something like that," Linna sighed.  
Darlene snorted, then smiled an evil smile. "But what to do about it?  
That's the problem; too many choices," she mock-sighed.  
"You won't do anything... permanent, will you?" Nene said, hesitantly.  
"You mean like turning him into a pillar of salt?" Darlene inquired,  
then waved her hands frantically in denial when they turned appalled looks at  
her. "I'm kidding! Kidding! Jeez! I'm more the non-lasting type of punishment  
person." She chuckled at their relieved expressions. "What are you two going  
to do?"  
"I don't know," Nene admitted. "I need a little time."  
Linna wasn't as unsure. "I'm thinking of giving him a few free aerobics  
lessons..."  
"THAT'S punishment?" Nene and Darlene chorused incredulously  
"...in one of my one-hour long ADVANCED aerobics classes," Linna  
finished. "He'll be SO sore by the end of the third day..." They all laughed  
at the image that produced.  
Then they were interrupted.  
"R-Ranma?" a voice stammered directly ahead of the three. Darlene froze  
when she heard, and saw, the person who had spoken. The trio had reached a  
corner of an intersection, but the person who had spoken had almost reached  
their side of the crosswalk before halting. Linna and Nene had walked a step  
or two forwards before realizing that their friend had stopped and was  
staring at the stranger on the street.  
The young man looked like he had been travelling for he looked dusty and  
was carrying a backpack on his back, an old style umbrella attached on top.  
Both women noticed he was attractively good-looking, and the bandanna wrapped  
around his black hair only helped this image. He appeared very surprised, and  
angry.  
Darlene was not just surprised, she was shocked beyond belief.  
"R-Ryouga?!?!" she said as she backed up towards the corner of the building  
behind her. "H-How did...?"  
Indeed it was Ryouga, impossible as it was, and in a very frustrated  
mood, not helped by mistakenly thinking he saw his rival. "Raaaaannnmmmaaa!  
Prepare to die!" he shouted, whipping out his umbrella as he prepared to  
strike. Pedestrians gathering around him looked on with mixed disbelief and  
amusement seeing the ridiculous-seeming weapon. Linna and Nene were wondering  
how Darlene knew this guy, until they remembered that Darlene had mentioned  
the name Ryouga before, but that was someone who was supposed to be in  
another universe entirely.  
"Wait!" Darlene cried frantically, waving her hands in denial. "I'm  
not..."  
She wasn't able to finish as Ryouga leaped towards his foe, making her  
dodge so as to not get hit with the umbrella that was extended. The  
innocent-looking weapon smashed into the corner of the building that Darlene  
had been standing in front of, leaving a sizable crater in the concrete and  
drastically changing people's minds about its effectiveness.  
"Ryouga, stop!" Darlene did a very dumb thing and stepped close to the  
angry martial artist. "I'm not Ranma!" she said.  
"Shut up!" Ryouga bellowed and launched a fist at the red-head.  
Who didn't dodge, as Ranma would've. Instead, she used both hands to  
block the incoming blow, digging into and ruining the cement sidewalk as she  
was forced backwards, wincing at the pain in her wrists. Darlene took  
advantage of Ryouga's confusion while keeping a grip on the other's fist.  
"I'm NOT Ranma, Ryouga!" she said again. "Who ELSE looks like Ranma?  
Remember?" she stressed the last word.  
The bandanna-wearing martial artist blinked, and finally noticed the  
lack of a ponytail in the young woman's hair. There was only one other he  
knew personally that had Ranma's cursed form and that was... "Twister?" he  
said, confused.  
"Shh! Use Darlene," Darlene hissed, shushing him quickly. "Yes, you  
idiot! Can't you TALK first before attacking someone?" Ryouga flushed with  
embarrassment. "Now I've got to get you out of here, c'mon!" she said,  
grabbing his arm and dragging him along. When she reached a confused Linna  
and Nene, she muttered a quick "Let's go." before walking by them, Ryouga in  
tow.  
Confused, Linna and Nene looked at each other, then hurried after the  
other two. 

Darlene refused to say a word until they all got to her store and went  
upstairs. After using warm water, which made Ryouga relax, Twister sighed.  
"You, Ryouga, are the only person I know who could do this. How long have you  
been here?"  
"Where IS here?" the eternally lost boy demanded as Linna and Nene  
decided to take sit down, curious as to what was going on.  
"Mega-Tokyo. And no, I don't mean Tokyo." Twister paused. "Ryouga,  
you're in another UNIVERSE."  
It took a moment to sink in. "Another... universe?" Ryouga said faintly.  
"Yes, I've been here almost two years now, but I don't think you have.  
When did you last see Akane? Or Akari for that matter."  
"A few weeks ago. What do you mean by 'another universe'??"  
"As in a different Earth is what I mean. THIS Japan isn't the Japan we  
left, and time can act oddly between two universes. Like I said, I've been  
here almost two years, but somehow you managed to follow me by entering this  
universe sometime after leaving the dojo, maybe almost the same time I left  
you did but arrived later." Twister ran a hand through his hair, frustrated.  
"That's my best guess anyhow."  
"Can you send us back?" the bandanna-wearing martial artist asked  
plaintively.  
"I've been working on it off and on. If I increase my efforts I think I  
can in around a month." He didn't miss Ryouga's look of dismay. "I'm sorry,  
but that's as soon as I can make it, I hope, but while you're here...  
Ladies?" Twister inquired, Linna and Nene perked up as Ryouga registered  
their presence at last. "Ryouga Hibiki, meet Linna Yamasaki and Nene  
Romanova, two good friends of mine who know a lot about me."  
"Hello!" "Welcome to Mega-Tokyo."  
"Ah... Hi," the bandanna wearing young man said, slightly red-faced and  
bashful at the two women's curious examination of himself.  
Twister frowned at another thought. "Now, where should you stay while  
you're here?" he murmured.  
"Say," Linna asked intently, staring at Ryouga intently. "You're a  
pretty good martial artist, aren't you?"  
"Ah... Sorta," he replied, laughing a little and scratching his head.  
She smiled, and both Nene and Twister recognized the particular smile  
the black-haired aerobics teacher wore, one that appeared too often when  
faced with a member of human males. Standing up briskly, Linna came within a  
foot of the suddenly nervous and flushed Ryouga.  
"I'll gladly volunteer to show you around," she purred as Nene watched  
behind her, annoyed. Twister put a hand on his face, resigned at Linna's  
predictable behaviour. She fingered her own headband, and said, "Maybe I  
should change this to match..."  
Ryouga eyes brightened, and he also started sweating a lot more from an  
internal conflict.  
She's cute, he thought dreamily, but Akane... Akari...  
Resigned to watching this, Twister observed Ryouga's predictable  
indecision and shook his head sadly. 

Chapter Thirty-One  
==================

TWO WEEKS LATER... 

A laboratory, secretly prepared and set up with some of the most  
advanced equipment on the planet, started the next upheaval in the lives of  
the Knight Sabers and Twister. And it began with a familiar voice, one they  
knew well, even if they had only heard it for one night.  
"Our preparations are complete. Let the first move be made."  
The two in front of him nodded, then walked away.  
"Soon..." he murmured.  
And started to laugh.

"AAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!"  
Linna and Ryouga stopped practicing at the scream of frustration that  
came from the red-headed, cross-legged figure a short distance away from  
their mat. Linna was the one practicing really, Ryouga was teaching her as a  
means to pass the time and out of a growing friendship between the two. That  
friendship was a constant source of amazement for Linna's closest friends who  
knew her boyfriends never lasted more than two weeks. Of course, Ryouga never  
really fell into that category, even after two weeks of Linna helping him  
around Mega-Tokyo, she keeping close tabs on the eternal lost boy after  
losing him one day in a shopping mall and taking three hours to track him  
down. Linna had tried to take things a little further, but Ryouga was so  
indecisive she withdrew, finally fed up, and instead asked him to teach her  
some of his moves, and that calmed the fanged young man's nervousness down.  
Darlene was puzzled and a little hurt that her friend hadn't asked her first,  
until Linna confessed that she had thought their long friendship might affect  
training.  
So now Ryouga had settled into being Linna's sensei while Darlene worked  
on getting a trans-universal spell working.  
The mage's scream didn't exactly indicate positive progress.  
"Trouble?" Linna asked, a slight grin hovering on her lips.  
The red-head didn't turn around, but her hands were thrown up furiously.  
"No! I always yell out at the top of my lungs just for the hell of it!" she  
shouted angrily, not bothering to loom at them. Linna shook her head, amused.  
Nene walked in from the entrance to the large cavern, annoyed. She had  
been working on the cavern's large computer when she had heard the scream.  
"Darlene again?" she asked disgustedly.  
"Who else?" Linna sighed.  
Nene pursed her lips and a determined look appeared on her face as she  
strode towards the now-muttering mage. Walking around the seated figure and  
glaring down at her friend, Nene loudly said, "Hey!"  
Startled, Darlene jerked her head up to stare at her strangely resolute  
friend. "Nene? What..." The ADPolice officer interrupted her.  
"Darlene, for the last WEEK you've been getting more and more moody ever  
since you started running into problems with that stupid spell of yours." The  
other tried to speak up, but Nene pointed an accusing finger at the red-head,  
making Darlene's eyes cross as she tried to focus on the digit. "Oh, no! No  
excuses! Everybody's had enough of your bad temper! YOU are going to forget  
about that spell until you get back to normal and WE will make sure you do  
so! Am I getting through that hard head?"  
"Hard head?" Darlene protested, but Nene was unwavering in her stare and  
she soon gave in. "Okay, okay! I'll stop. Enough with the laser look  
already."  
"Good!" Nene grinned impishly as she watched her friend stiffly stand  
up. "Come on, let's get going."  
"Going? Going where?"  
"A party, silly."  
"Party?" Linna thought she remembered something mentioned a long time  
ago, and then it hit her. "Nene, you don't mean THAT..."  
"...party? Of course!" Nene quickly finished. "Priss got the invitations  
ready a long time ago and today's the date it's on."  
"I see I'm outnumbered again," Darlene sighed, giving the two of them a  
small glower. "Just a moment, I have to do something before we leave." She  
left normally through the hangar's only entrance.  
Linna came up to Nene and whispered, "You're not going to get her drunk  
like we had planned, are you?"  
"Of course not!" Nene indignantly protested. "Not now. Well, maybe a  
little bit if she won't loosen up," she mused thoughtfully.  
"How about not at all, idiot," Linna whispered firmly. To Nene's  
startled look she replied, "Do you WANT a drunk mage who isn't experienced at  
being bombed?"  
That reminder made the red-head pale a little. "Oh, yeah. I guess not  
then," she said sheepishly.  
Ryouga, who had stayed in the background, hesitantly said, "Ah... Should  
we continue, Linna?"  
"Sure, no problem," she said brightly, turning away from Nene. "Did you  
want to start with that shishi houkoudan you mentioned?" Ryouga balked a bit  
but reluctantly nodded. "Great!" she said, and meant it.  
But Ryouga had to add one important point, forgetting his nervousness as  
he shifted into full-sensei mode again. "However, the Shishi Houkoudan uses  
heavy emotions like depression to fuel it. You're not that type of person,  
but Ranma found a different way that uses confidence and that would be more  
your style." He shrugged. "There's only a very small difference so if you  
know one you can figure out the other."  
"Confidence?" Linna mused aloud as she thought about it, then smiled. "I  
like the sound of it."  
That figures, Nene impishly thought to herself, and hid her grin behind  
a hand.

That evening, after parking their transportation and following Priss to  
the party's location, they arrived at the entrance. A set of stairs led up to  
a large and expensive-looking club's door where a line of flashily-dressed  
people stood. Darlene gaped up at the club's entrance. "YOU know this guy,  
Priss?" she demanded incredulously for she couldn't believe someone PRISS  
knew could afford renting a place like THIS for the night. Behind her,  
Ryouga, who was nervously escorting Linna, silently agreed.  
"Hey, I know the guy's friend." She grinned down at the slightly stunned  
red-head. "Close enough."  
"How close would that be?" Darlene innocently asked the singer, smiling  
impishly. Beside Priss, Nene giggled at the incoherent growl her brown-haired  
friend made in reply. Sadly, Sylvie and Anri had declined to come, fearing  
that their sexaroid bodies might attract undue attention.  
"Come on," the singer said irritably, striding ahead. Nene and Darlene  
followed, both grinning, with Ryouga and Linna behind them. The two Boomers  
who were acting as bouncers stopped Priss' momentum momentarily until she  
identified herself and the others. There was a bit of trouble with getting  
Ryouga in, which might have turned bad(for him or the Boomers was  
debateable), but Linna proclaimed that he was her escort and they grudgingly  
let the group inside.  
It was almost wall-to-wall people and the five made slow progress inside  
the rented nightclub. Suddenly, a tall, thin, white-haired male about Priss'  
age with a blue streak of color in his long mane appeared in front of Priss  
and smiled energetically when he recognized the brown-haired singer.  
"Hey, Priss! Long time no see!" he cried out, slapping a hand on one of  
her shoulders. "Nice set-up my buddy got together, hey?"  
"Hey, White." Priss smiled back and looked around at the crowd. "Yeah,  
it sure is. Thanks for getting us in."  
"No sweat," he said dismissively, then White saw who had come in with  
her and whistled. "I should've figured your friends would be nice but I  
didn't think they'd be THIS nice." The three females reddened while Ryouga  
frowned. "And TWO red-heads yet! I'd better check to make sure all the fire  
extinguishers are working." Nene and Darlene blushed even harder. "You've got  
to introduce me, Priss, I'm dying here," the man mock-griped.  
Priss grinned. "That's no surprise. Everybody, this is White-N-Blue,  
call him White, and if he has another name I haven't heard it. White, these  
are my friends Linna, Nene, Darlene, and, Linna's date for the night,  
Ryouga."  
White opened his arms wide with a grin. "Welcome to the party. Hey, cool  
headband and getup," he commented approvingly to Ryouga. "Unfortunately, I  
gotta go. I'll be back later but have a real time till I get back, then we'll  
really get swinging!" After a sly look at the two red-heads, he added, "Try  
out the punch, it's great!" That said, he disappeared into the crowd.  
"Hentai," Priss muttered softly; White obviously knew it was spiked.  
"I'm hungry. Where's the food?" Nene whined.  
Darlene hopped slightly and spied the refreshments along one wall.  
"Found it! It's on the far side of the room."  
"Well, c'mon then! I'm starved!" Nene almost dragged Darlene along as  
they set out for their objective and quickly vanished into the throng.  
Priss sighed, disgusted. "That's Nene for you." Now she in her turn  
looked around for something else entirely. "Where's the dance floor?"  
Linna craned her neck and pointed in a seemingly random direction. "Over  
there, I think." Smiling she tugged on Ryouga's arm. "Shall we?"  
"Bu-bu-but I don't know how to dance!" he protested, face paling.  
"Who dances?" said Priss with a grin. "You just rock. Let's go!" And  
together they brought the nervous martial artist along with them.

"Oh, wow!" Wide-eyed, Nene scanned the deserts and dainties that covered  
most of a table. "This is great! What should I get? It all looks so good."  
She glanced at Darlene inquiringly, then did a double take.  
"Mmm... Try a little of each?" Darlene said with a grin as she casually  
held a plate that almost overflowed with cake and sweets.  
Nene was stunned. "Wha...? When did you...?" She gathered herself and  
glared at Darlene who stepped beside her, popping a round sweet into her  
mouth. "You did that just to annoy me," she accused.  
"Hey, you're the one who complains about her waist," Darlene pointed  
out. "Just reminding you, that's all."  
"I have control!" Nene protested, then weakened a bit as Darlene  
knowingly looked at the table then her. "I do," she said more feebly.  
Darlene sighed. "Losing battle," she remarked, then stiffened. Nene's  
eyes widened in shock as she too felt something grip her behind.  
"Hey, girls," a male, confident sounding voice came from behind them.  
"Do you want to party with me for a while?"  
Darlene's reply was in a normal volume, but with a tone of you-are-  
about-to-become-charcoal-and-I-don't-mean-my-dragon very much present, "Lose  
the hand, asshole, or else."  
The voice grew amused, "Or else what? My hands feel VERY comfortable  
where they are." He squeezed making Nene squeak indignantly.  
Darlene's eyes narrowed in anger.

Ryouga paused in the middle of a step.  
Exhilarated from the dancing, Linna panted, "What is it?"  
"I thought I heard something."  
"In THIS?" she said incredulously.  
He listened, then shook his head. "Must be imagining it."  
"Do some more of those martial arts flips!" she demanded with a smile.  
Ryouga blushed, embarrassed, as the crowd around him echoed her loudly.

The area around the refreshments was stunned into silence as people  
stared at the overturned table and the pair of feet that protruded from  
behind it. Slowly, Nene turned her wide-eyed stare from the display to  
Darlene, who was straightening from the position her throw had placed her in.  
Miraculously, she still held her undisturbed plate in one hand.  
"I did warn him," she said, piqued.  
"But did you have to toss him into the FOOD?!" Nene demanded, recovering  
from the shock. Darlene shrugged her shoulders sheepishly. "Honestly!" she  
huffed.  
"Um... Well, I still have this," Darlene said, displaying the plate she  
still held. "Let's go get something to drink."  
Eyeing the tempting plate, Nene decided. "Oh, all right." She made a  
face at the destroyed table "Bleah!" before they both walked away.  
There was a groan from behind the table in reply, and one foot twitched.  
The table with all the non-alcoholic beverages was only a little ways  
off and had two attendants giving people what they requested. The pair, one  
male and one female, welcomed the red-heads. The blonde female attendant was  
grinning after another look at where the unfortunate table had been  
overturned.  
"Couldn't have happened to anyone better. Nice job," she congratulated  
Darlene, who reddened. The woman chuckled. "Oh, don't be embarrassed. He's  
been doing that all night, and with this assorted crowd it was bound to  
happen sooner or later."  
The black-haired male chortled. "Yeah, but what a waste of good food."  
After giving her partner a grin, the blonde said, "What would you like  
to drink? Punch? Tossing perverts around is thirsty work."  
Knowing that the punch was spiked, Nene began, "Um... we'd..."  
"Sure," Darlene said, not seeing Nene's suddenly panicked expression  
behind her.  
Before Nene could say nay, the smiling blonde held out two glasses  
filled with pink-yellow liquid from the extremely large punch bowl on the  
table. "Here you go!" Darlene accepted one with a smile, Nene with a sickly  
expression.  
Darlene sipped from the cup, and her eyes widened a few seconds later.  
"Whoa!"  
The two attendants exchanged nervous looks, and the woman inquired,  
"Anything wrong?"  
The red-head shook her head. "No, no. I... This punch just has a wicked  
aftertaste, that's all." Darlene considered the flavor. "Not bad actually."  
"Aftertaste?" Nene said curiously and took a large sip from her own  
glass. She blinked in confusion. "I don't taste anything odd."  
Darlene drank a larger amount to better judge the taste. "It's sort of  
an intense pepperminty-cherry flavor. You sure you can't taste it?" Nene  
shook her head. The two behind the table withdrew a little.  
"That's what the alcohol taste-nullifier is supposed to be like," the  
blonde whispered.  
"But only in concentrated form! How can she taste it when it's diluted  
as much as it is?!" her companion in mischief objected.  
"I guess she has really good taste buds." She shrugged. "It happens."  
Meanwhile, Darlene had emptied her glass trying to isolate the elusive  
tang. She held out her glass with a smile. "Strange taste, but I like it.  
Kinda grows on you."  
The blonde blinked, but accepted the glass automatically. Strange, she  
thought, the punch is so spiked this girl should be feeling it by now. Must  
have a high tolerance for alcohol. The blonde smiled back as she filled the  
glass again. I wonder how high? she mused curiously.  
From her position behind Darlene, Nene's face was flushed, having  
finished her own glass. Her own tolerance wasn't nearly as high as her  
friend's.  
Good punch, she thought a little blearily, I guess one more shouldn't  
hurt.  
"I'll have one too," she said a little unsteadily, but firmly holding  
out her own glass.  
Seeing her state, the black-haired male merely smiled and re-filled it  
without a word.

"Quite the gathering," Daley shouted to his partner as they weaved their  
way through the crowd. The two had been ordered to stop by this club and do  
some things before their shift ended.  
Leon grinned back at him, then sighed. "Yeah, too bad we're on duty." He  
stopped and looked around as his red-haired partner caught up to him. "Where  
do you think they have it? Nevermind, I see it. Come on." The pair started  
pushing through the crowd again. But as they neared their goal, Leon saw two  
familiar women standing by the table the officers were heading for and  
immediately stopped. Daley looked back, startled.  
"What's up?" he asked. Leon stared at two red-headed figures by the  
table.  
"Isn't that Nene and Darlene?" the brown-haired ADPoliceman said, a  
feeling of dread beginning to make itself known in his stomach as Daley  
whipped his head around to check. Leon's partner frowned thoughtfully.  
"Looks like them alright. They seem to be leaving though," he commented.  
With some concern in his voice, he said, "You think they drank a lot?"  
"Darlene's the one to worry about, but fortunately she has a high  
tolerance to alcohol," Leon replied, more to reassure himself than Daley.  
"We'd better make sure. Let's go."  
When the two officers reached the table, they flipped out their ID's to  
the much-surprised punch servers. Leon said, "ADPolice. I'm sorry but the  
substance you're using is not on the approved list of safe chemical additives  
yet so I'm afraid you'll have to stop serving your spiked punch."  
"Oh, damn," the blonde said disgustedly. "I had a feeling this would  
happen."  
"Say," Daley asked the attendants, "how much punch did the two red-  
haired girls who just left have? It's important." The woman blinked,  
surprised.  
"Really? Well, the green-eyed one had two glasses and was starting to  
look pretty tipsy."  
Leon leaned forward anxiously. "And the other?"  
The blonde shook her head in remembered disbelief. "TEN, if you can  
believe that! I was wondering WHEN she would start acting drunk and that was  
at number five. She's a head shorter than me and I would've been on the floor  
by then," she said admiringly. "The punch is pretty heavily spiked to test  
the secret ingredient you know." She took a look at their somewhat-panicked  
expressions. "What's wrong with that?" she asked.  
Leon laughed a little, hiding his concern. "Nothing! Nothing at all. We  
just thought we knew those two, that's all. Just stop serving punch; someone  
else will come for it later. Come on, Daley," he said, leaving the slightly  
confused attendant behind.  
"This is Not Good, Leon," Daley said as they plunged into the crowd  
again, rapidly scanning the mob for the two girls. "We'd better find them  
fast before anything happens."  
"No shit," Leon replied. "The last thing I want is another Elf-like  
incident." Suddenly, Leon smacked a fist into a palm in realization. "Wait a  
minute! Why would those two be here alone? This party is more Priss' style.  
She MUST have come with them. AND I have a better idea of where to find HER,  
then she can help us find THEM. Let's go!" Leon started ahead once more,  
forcing Daley to hurry to stay behind him.  
"Go where, Leon?"  
Leon turned his head, showing his grin.  
"Just follow the music!"

Chapter Thirty-Two  
==================

Darlene heaved a sigh.  
"Are you dooonne yet, Nene?" she asked for what seemed the quintillionth  
time.  
"Almost," was the reply from the stall.  
The red-head sighed again; even being in female form and her current  
drunken state, she was still uncomfortable in the ladies room. But Nene had  
had to go, and, as she had been unable to walk very far at the time, had  
needed the mage's support.  
Darlene wasn't feeling very steady herself, and not just a little giddy.  
The closest thing to what she felt like now was drunk, but that was  
impossible; she hadn't even had one alcoholic beverage tonight. She giggled  
a little for no reason.  
Finally, Nene's stall opened and the silly grin the ADPolice officer  
wore did nothing to alleviate the giggle fit. "Sorry, had trouble with my  
skirt," she apologized, giggling.  
"Why? What was the trouble?"  
Nene broke out laughing. "It was on the floor!"  
Darlene joined in when she heard the joke. Two other women over by the  
mirrors who were checking their make-up looked at each other and struggled  
not to break out laughing themselves. Not because of the drunken joke but  
rather the sight of the two diminutive red-heads laughing over something only  
drunks could find funny. Both of the cute-looking girls seemed at a point  
somewhere in the middle of being buzzed or unconscious. They were hilarious.  
"Aren't you gonna go in?" Nene asked Darlene, but the other shook her  
head.  
"Nope!" she declared proudly. "Don't need to. Takes a looong while for  
me now." She snickered at the dirty look her friend gave her. Then Darlene  
lowered her voice, and whispered to Nene conspiratorially, "Tell you  
something else though."  
The red-head leaned forward, eyes bright with curiosity. "What's that?"  
Darlene didn't say anything, but smiled mysteriously and unbuttoned her  
blouse a little to open it up.  
Nene gasped in surprise. "A BRA?!" The two women who were leaving rolled  
their eyes, exasperated by the ongoing clothing humour, not knowing the real  
reason for Nene's shock. The owner of the fantasy store never wore a bra, her  
breasts were pretty firm and didn't move much unless the red-head moved too  
quickly, also wearing thick blouses, but the real reason was because of her  
transformations between sexes. "Why?" Nene asked curiously, fascinated by  
this oddity.  
"Well heck! If you go to a party you dance, and dancing would bounce  
these things around too much," Darlene complained. "Sometimes I wish Ranma's  
female form hadn't been so well-endowed."  
Me too, Nene thought enviously.  
"If I do change, it becomes a muscle shirt, and vice-versa. Neat, huh?"  
She hopped and considered. "The support IS nice," she mused, if a little  
guiltily.  
Nene ignored it completely, caught up as she was in a sudden vision of  
being a princess in a magical land. She sighed sorrowfully. "I wish I was a  
princess," she said wistfully. If their friends had been in the washroom they  
would have felt a sudden sinking sensation at those words as Darlene perked  
up on hearing them.  
"Let's pretend!" the mage exclaimed, and Nene blinked at her friend.  
"What?"  
"You be the princess, and I'll be your faithful court wizard," Darlene  
bubbled in her excitement. "It'll be easy!"  
"Really?" Nene said, getting excited as well, then frowned. "But what  
about a court?" To that, Darlene smiled impishly.  
"Let's work on us first, then we go to the party, I mean court,  
OUTSIDE."  
Nene's eyes widened in realization at all the people outside the  
washroom and her excitement welled up once more. "Do we do it?" she said,  
bouncing on her toes in front of a grinning Darlene.  
"YES!!" they chorused, and broke up giggling.

Leon and Daley had found Priss shouting criticisms at the band, and  
after explaining their appearance and concerned looks, went off to find  
Linna. They found her and Ryouga on the dance floor. Ryouga having lost his  
embarrassment at last, though it still surfaced from time to time.  
Linna was surprised at the three's arrival, her bandanna-wearing escort  
stopped as well and came up beside her. "Priss, what's wrong?" she asked,  
noting the singer's expression.  
"Nene goofed up, that's what," the singer replied, agitated. Leon spoke  
up.  
"Daley and I saw them leaving the table with the spiked punch. We asked  
and apparently Darlene had drank TEN glasses of the stuff." Linna paled.  
"Oh no! Do you know where they went?" she asked, but the question soon  
became irrelevant for gasps and intermittent shrieks from one side of the  
crowded room advertised the fact that something was up.  
Then what seemed to be a visual shiver passed over the five on the dance  
floor, leaving them, and everyone else in the club, with an apparently  
radically altered set of clothing; the reason for the previous startlement of  
the far side of the crowd as they had been the first to be hit.  
Linna looked down and saw a beautiful green dress, cut in a medieval  
style and with a slightly below average neckline. If she had possessed a  
mirror she would have seen her hair was longer and held by an ornate tiara  
embedded with emeralds. Beside her, Ryouga stared at the changes made to her  
attire and quickly looked down at himself, but found to his relief that his  
normal clothes hadn't been altered.  
Priss stared at her fellow Knight Saber as well before jerking her eyes  
down to herself, and didn't like what she saw one bit. Feet to fingertips,  
the singer was dressed in deep red leather. Hugging skin close to her body,  
the leather pants she saw appeared laced up the sides while her 'shirt' was  
something that covered her back completely but laced up the front, showing a  
bit too much cleavage for her liking. Leather gloves protected her hands and  
arms up to just beyond her elbows, tall boots on her feet did the same for  
her legs. As with Linna, Priss' hair had changed but tied into a short  
ponytail. Normally, Priss LIKED leather, her biking outfit was made of  
leather, but not THIS way. For God's sake, there was even a belt with a  
frigging SWORD to complete the damn outfit!  
The two detectives saw the two women, then looked at themselves. Daley  
had on a loose, silk shirt with billowy sleeves along with a pair of matching  
pants that fit rather close. Along with delicate-seeming shoes, white gloves,  
and a circular, purple-colored cloth hat, the red-haired officer was dressed  
like a classic court fop, with a rapier buckled casually around the waist.  
Leon was dressed in similar style to Priss, but in a masculine way and  
a little more armoured. Black leather, along with thicker bucklers of the  
same material reenforced by metal, was what his outfit was made of. His sword  
was more massive in its sheath and his gloves were gauntlets.  
Their clothing hadn't actually changed, Darlene hadn't had enough  
concentration to alter a room's worth of clothing, but the mass visual  
illusion she HAD done was impressive in its results and extended to the  
entire party, creating a excited murmur that covered the stunned five's  
conversation.  
"Wha-What's this?!" Linna stammered as she finally spoke up, snapping  
out of her stunned state. "How come I can still feel my old clothes when I'm  
wearing THIS?!" Priss checked patted her arms and legs and sighed in relief  
when she too felt her clothes were unchanged.  
"A hallucination?" Daley queried Leon as he admired the getup he found  
himself apparently wearing.  
"More like illusion if Darlene's involved," Leon said absently. Daley  
wondered why until he saw his partner hungrily examining Priss' revealing  
getup.  
So did she. "Leoooon...." she started threateningly, holding up a fist  
and advancing. The officer backed away quickly, holding up his gauntleted  
hands in surrender, and feeling very glad that the sword at her side was an  
illusion.  
"Ha ha ha! Right!" he declared, turning resolutely and hoping she  
wouldn't punch him. "We've got to find those two before they do anything  
else." Priss eyed him sceptically, but reluctantly turned away to look for  
the missing duo.  
"THERE you guys are!" exclaimed Nene's excited voice. "Finally found  
you!" she said as she glided through the crowd into view. Literally: she was  
floating an inch above the floor. The ADPolice red-head wore an outrageously  
fanciful, fairy-tale princess-style dress. The wide bell-shape of her gown  
was so white it hurt the eyes, making detail was impossible to see. Luminous  
white silk gloves covered her hands and an extravagantly expensive necklace  
was around her graceful neck. "Told you, Darlene. Ah!" she exclaimed and  
corrected herself. "I mean, court wizard, we have found them!"  
"Certainly, your highness," Darlene said with a giggle as she stepped  
around the grinning Nene. Her outfit was the most disturbing of all; she  
appeared to be wearing a dress of some kind, purple of course, but everything  
was obscured by a long cloak that concealed whatever she wore underneath and  
had a high collar that framed the mage's face and hair. The disturbing part  
was the color of the cloak: there was none. That is, the cloak kept shifting  
into one eye-wrenching pattern before moving on to another just as wrenching.  
She held two glasses of punch in her hand and was sipping out of one of them.  
Ever so subtle, Priss shouted at them. "What the hell are you two  
doing?!?! Get rid of this stupid spell! For crying out loud, do you WANT to  
get caught??"  
"Aw, Priss, don't be a spoilsport," Darlene said, pouting. Then she  
brightened and held out the glass she hadn't touched yet. "Here, have some  
punch." Frowning, the singer took the offered drink as she tried to frame a  
reply, but the magic-user had already turned to Nene. "What else do we need,  
your Highness?" she said with a giggle. Nene furrowed her brow in  
concentration, then smiled.  
"We need a prince!" she exclaimed.  
"One in an enchanted sleep?"  
Nene looked dubious. "I dunno. Isn't that a princess' duty?"  
"Eh, equal rights," Darlene said, waving her hand dismissively. "Let the  
prince do it for a change." Nene smiled and nodded approvingly.  
"Okay!"  
"Soooo...." Darlene drawled out, then whirled around to smile merrily at  
Leon and Daley, startling them. "I guess we've got two volunteers right  
HERE!"  
Leon backed up a step at the look in her eyes. "Ah... hey now, Darlene,  
don't do anything hasty now. Just..."  
"DEEP SLEEP!" Darlene cried gleefully, pointing at the two ADPolice  
officers. The two word rhyme was sufficient to cast a sleep spell which  
washed over the two hapless officers.  
"Don't...." Daley began but lost the battle with his eyes and fell  
asleep, Leon a moment later. Priss, fumbling with her drink, caught the  
brown-haired officer while Ryouga grabbed Daley. They laid the luckless  
officers gently on the ground while Nene clapped heartily.  
"Neat!" she chirped.  
"Nene!" Linna protested, and the red-head became downcast at the angry  
look on her friend's face. "This isn't funny! Stop it! You too, Darlene!" she  
said, turning to the grinning mage who then mirrored Nene's crestfallen look  
when she saw how angry Linna was. "You're both drunk and behaving like  
children! Darlene, get rid of all these spells, now!" she demanded but the  
red-haired mage scowled.  
"Am NOT drunk! Only had punch! See?" she declared and drank the rest of  
her glass in a gulp. "I'm just..." Darlene started weaving unsteadily,  
"...finnnnneeee...." Her eyes rolled up and Linna had to catch her before she  
hit the floor.  
"Too much, too fast, and it finally caught up to her," Priss said with  
a resigned sigh, looking over the three unconscious bodies. "NOW what do we  
do?"  
"I..." Linna began to say, but stopped, startled, when Nene's princess  
illusion vanished and her regular clothes revealed themselves. The red-head  
was disappointed, but the others were relieved. "Looks like the illusions  
won't last long, thank goodness." She plucked at her own illusionary dress.  
"Though I may ask her for a real one sometime." Priss snorted.  
"Thanks, but I'll pass." She looked around at the excited crowd around  
her, the court getup was being greeted as a harmless, hi-tech prank and most  
people were taking the whole thing in stride, enjoying the masquerade while  
it lasted. Figures. "We'd better leave." She looked wryly down at the  
blissfully oblivious Leon. "And take the 'sleeping beauties' along."  
"What will we do? We all came in my van. They won't fit," Linna said  
worriedly. Priss dismissed the worry and waved at the ADPolice officers on  
the ground.  
"They must've brought their car. I'll drop Darlene off, then dump them  
at their place and take a bus home."  
"Awww...." Nene whined. "Can't we stay longer?" She hiccupped.  
"No," Linna said firmly, grabbing her red-headed friend's hand firmly.  
"Let's go home, Nene. Ryouga, could you pick up Leon and Daley?" He nodded  
and bent to gather up the two fallen men. "Thanks. Priss should be able to  
manage Darlene." She sighed as they started to leave.  
What a night!

Priss parked the police car by Darlene's place, she had just gotten the  
unconscious Darlene in by the first story door when she realized a flaw in  
her plan.  
"Oh, man!" she exclaimed out loud to no one as she realized something.  
"How am I going to get the other two into their place? It's hard enough with  
Darlene." She sighed, tired, as she managed to open the door for the  
staircase to Darlene's second story home. "Guess I'll manage," she grunted.  
When she reached the top, still holding the out of it red-head, she was  
rewarded with a shock.  
Outstretched on the floor were Daley and Leon.  
"HUH?!?!?!?"  
A chirp to the side attracted her attention, and she nearly cried aloud  
again. It was Darlene's dragon Charcoal in it's miniature form, sitting on  
one of the couches with its wings outstretched. It chirped again before  
vanishing in a small puff of flame.  
"The damn dragon heard me," Priss said incredulously. "But it got the  
WRONG place! Argh! Now what do I do?!" she demanded. Holding Darlene wasn't  
easy so she took the unconscious mage to the mage's bedroom and put her on  
the bed. The singer stretched her arms, grateful to be rid of the weight.  
Putting a hand on her head, Priss wondered what to do. There was no way she  
was going to drag the two officers back down the stairs, so she supposed they  
might as well stay here. She started to turn away, but then an idea struck.  
A good idea.  
No.  
This was an EVIL idea.  
A full-blown grin grew on Priss' face as she looked at Darlene's still  
form. Oh, this was just too good, she thought. Should she do it? A chuckle  
escaped her. You BET! But first... Priss quickly left the room and headed  
down the hall again.  
She needed one little thing which she knew the red-head had.

Chapter Thirty-Three  
====================

The first thing Leon discovered upon slowly gaining awareness of his  
surroundings was that most of his clothes were off and that he was in a bed.  
Unfortunately, by the feel of the silky-soft covers on his skin, it was not  
HIS bed. This was not necessarily a bad thing. Nevertheless, he carefully  
opened his eyes, wondering where he was as his last memory ended at the party  
last night.  
And saw Darlene's peacefully sleeping face right beside him.  
His immediate first thought was: Did we?? Considering who slept beside  
him, in what was most likely her bed, his next thought was: How is SHE going  
to react? The answer to both was: leave and find out LATER.  
Leon tried ease himself out of the bed, but saw that it would be  
difficult as he was positioned on the side of the bed against the wall and  
would have to crawl over the dozing mage to escape. Shifting his legs under  
the covers, he brushed Darlene with one of his knees and discovered with a  
bit of nervousness that she was wearing even less than he was. Nothing.  
Wait...  
Something...sticky?...was on his leg from the brush with Darlene? He  
slid his hand under the covers to feel what was on his leg. Yes, something  
sticky all right...no, impossible. Cautiously, he lifted his hand and  
examined the clear substance in the morning light. It didn't quite look like  
what he hoped it wasn't. He sniffed cautiously, then more deeply to make sure  
and blinked in surprise.  
HONEY????  
What the Hell...? he thought in astonishment. Then he began to get  
suspicious; he and Darlene in bed together, which was probably impossible for  
them to have done so by themselves considering what happened last night;  
Darlene having a sticky substance in an embarrassing position; and Priss had  
been present last night at the party. NOW things were beginning to make  
sense. All TOO much sense as he knew something about Priss and Darlene's  
jokes on each other. Now more than ever he had better get out of...  
Darlene's eyelids twitched.  
Leon's stomach sank as he watched her eyes slowly open, then snap all  
the way up in shock when she focused on the now-sickly smiling Leon.  
"AH!!! WHAT?!?!" she screamed aloud, recoiling from him, then blinked  
again in shock when she noticed that she wasn't wearing anything underneath  
the sheets, and instinctively covered herself more fully with the bedsheets.  
Before Leon could say anything she discovered the third and greatest shock,  
and turned pale. She shifted her legs underneath the covers a little,  
confirmed it, and went from pale to sheet white. Leon tried to reassure her.  
"Ah... Darlene... It's not what you think..."  
His voice died as she focused on him once more, after a moment her face  
started to return to a normal color and her eyes relaxed. So did he.  
"Leon..." she began conversationally, considering the ADPoliceman in her  
bed. He, in turn, was getting nervous again; she was taking this far too  
well, he realized.  
"Ah, yes?" She smiled at him.  
"PREPARE TO DIE!!!!!" she roared furiously, eyes blazing, and a fist,  
glowing brightly with ki but Leon didn't know about that part of her fighting  
skills, rocketed towards his head. Leon missed being hit by half a centimetre  
as his reflexes threw him out of the bed, years of dodging Boomers paying  
off. The wall where the fist landed wasn't so lucky and with a loud explosion  
a new hole was created in it.  
From the floor, Leon stared at where the fist had struck until Darlene  
slowly turned her enraged gaze in his direction again. He leaped up,  
adrenaline flowing, and sprinted for the doorway, mentally cursing Priss for  
trying to kill him; the only time he'd seen the red-headed mage madder was  
the Elf episode, and not by much.  
Somehow, he didn't think staying and talking was a wise idea.

Priss, who had stayed, and Daley, whom she had placed on the couch, woke  
up because of Darlene's enraged shout and even more alertly when the  
explosion happened. Priss leaped up in a half-asleep combat-mode and rushed  
to the hallway just in time to see Leon slam the bedroom door shut and lean  
on it heavily as he collected his wits. The singer then remembered her little  
prank and grinned broadly.  
"Sleeping arrangements not to your liking, Leon?" she said with a smirk,  
Daley walked up to stand behind Priss, wondering what was going on.  
"For God's sake, Priss!" Leon said in an angry and panicked way as he  
glared at her, wearing only his boxers. "This is NOT funny!"  
"It sure looks like..."  
CRACK!  
Leon's gaze shot down and he paled as he saw the sharp sword thrusting  
out from the door just below him, positioned between his spread legs, Priss  
and Daley gaped. He moved frantically out of the way before the blade shot  
cruelly up, carving a path through the door where Leon's neither region had  
been.  
"Clothes!" Leon demanded, and raced for the pile Priss numbly pointed  
to. Daley was about to ask him what was going on when the bedroom door  
exploded outwards and tumbled to the floor in tiny pieces.  
The red-head felt running away and letting Priss cool the obviously very  
angry Darlene down was the better part of valor. After grabbing the car keys  
when Priss hurriedly offered them, he quickly followed a semi-clothed Leon  
out of the apartment.  
Priss stared in shock at her friend when the red-head come out from her  
room. A bedcover was wrapped around her body, concealing it, but the now-  
flaming sword she held in her hand and the murderous expression on her face  
told the singer that the mage was definitely NOT happy. Darlene stepped  
forward down the hallway to grimly follow the fled males but Priss, feeling  
very stupid for doing so, intercepted the furious girl's path.  
"Wait!" the singer cried. Not wanting to run over her friend Darlene  
reluctantly did so, but her eyes were almost glowing with fury.  
"HE DIES A SLOW AND PAINFUL DEATH!!!" Darlene savagely shouted at her,  
punctuating the remark by waving the flaming sword and started advancing  
again.  
"It was a joke! A JOKE, Darlene!" Priss cried out. It took a second, but  
Darlene finally heard what her friend said and blankly looked at her. "You  
two didn't do anything! I put you both in bed together and used some honey to  
make it look like you had done something."  
"Honey?" Darlene blinked several times in confusion, then realization.  
"A...joke?" She lowered the sword, flames vanishing from the blade.  
Priss sighed in relief, seeing that the mage wasn't going to chop Leon  
up into little pieces anymore. She nodded affirmatively. "Yeah, just a joke."

A minute later, the singer got painfully off the floor, desperately  
sucking in air that had been knocked out by Darlene's lightning-fast fist.  
"Fuck, I really did it this time," she groaned, holding a hand to her sore  
midsection. "Damn, she hits hard. At least she didn't go for the face."  
Wincing a little, Priss headed for the mage's bedroom. She gave a hesitant  
glance at the blasted pieces of door on the floor before stepping through the  
doorway.  
"Any OTHER surprises today?" Darlene said bitterly. She sat on the edge  
of her bed, still holding her sword and hugging herself as if needing  
comfort, not bothering to look up at Priss, who sighed.  
"No."  
"Great. Then here's one for YOU!" And, to the singer's utter horror,  
Darlene threw the sword straight at her! The blade slid through clothes and  
flesh effortlessly, shock and the mage's quickness had prevented Priss from  
moving out of the way. The hilt impacted her already sore midsection severely  
and she staggered backwards in pain and shock. She'd just been impaled with  
a frigging sword! Priss thought, terrified. She was dead! Heedless of the  
consequences, she frantically gripped the hilt and pulled. The sword came out  
like nothing held it at all and for a brief moment she held the weapon high,  
staring at it. What the?!? She'd felt nothing?! Quickly looking down she saw  
a hole in her shirt, but no blood from a wound. With her free hand, Priss  
hesitantly checked and confirmed it.  
Nothing.  
"My sword doesn't harm human flesh. I forgot about that when I was angry  
at Leon. Now you know how I felt, and still feel," Darlene said bitterly,  
having watched Priss' reaction and then turned her gaze back to the floor.  
Heart still hammering, Priss couldn't say anything in response for the  
moment. Instead she walked over and sat on the bed beside Darlene, carefully  
putting the sword on the bed as soon as she could. "Guess it wasn't such a  
good idea, huh?" she said finally.  
"You KNOW my past!" Darlene angrily retorted, whirling to face the  
singer, tears in her eyes. "AND that I still don't know things about myself!  
Like when I lost control of my anger, and you know what happened THEN! It  
almost happened again when I thought I had..." She trailed off and shivered.  
"In my male form I'm in control, almost to a fault at times, but in my female  
form I'm NOT, I don't have the experience! Who knows what might happen if I  
did... that?"  
"You might find out some day," Priss said, realizing that the red-head  
still hadn't come to terms with some of the more exotic alterations to  
herself. It was easy to think otherwise as her friend tended to bury worries  
and show a more pleasant face.  
"Maybe, but I'm scared to death of the possibilities," Darlene  
whispered, and didn't object when Priss put a reassuring arm around her  
shoulders, deriving a little comfort from it. After a few minutes she sighed  
and looked up at Priss with something akin to amusement on her face. "You  
realize we're both going to have to apologize to Leon, don't you?" The singer  
looked less than pleased with that, but couldn't argue the point.  
"I suppose so..."  
"And let's not do any more practical jokes for a while, please?" Darlene  
pleaded. "This one frazzled my nerves a little too much."  
"What about impaling me with that fucking sword?!?" Priss protested  
indignantly. Darlene looked at her with a fake expression of innocent  
confusion.  
"But I thought would be appropriate for a vamp."  
"VAMP?!?!?" Priss exclaimed indignantly. "Why you!!!" Priss' friendly  
hug turned into something more appropriate for pro-wresting as she attacked.  
Darlene screeched in protest as it was unexpected.  
"HEY!! No fair!! I've just got a cover on!!" she protested.  
"I'll take any advantage I can get!" Priss pressed her attack, and  
started tickling her friend mercilessly.  
"No, no, not there! Ah! Ah-haha! Hahahahahahaha!"  
It degenerated from there.

Nene's awakening was much less of a surprise, Linna hadn't bothered to  
take off the red-head's clothes and simply laid her friend on her bed.  
However, the hangover she had was a painful reminder of what had happened  
last night. She was still blurry on certain details and so she decided to  
give Darlene a call.  
She had showered as she had felt dirty and the pounding in her head was  
a little less intense but otherwise she thought she was presentable enough  
for the vid-phone. It took quite a few rings before Darlene answered.  
"H-hello? Oh, Nene! Hi!"  
Nene stared. Darlene's face was flushed, her hair was in disarray, and  
there was a bedsheet wrapped around her, loosely. Her response to Nene's call  
had been a breathless response as well. It looked like... No. Not Darlene,  
Nene thought disbelievingly. Then Priss, with a smirk on her face, appeared  
behind the mage and waved casually at the ADPolicewoman.  
"Hey, Nene. Recovered from last night yet?" the singer asked with a  
grin, reminding the red-head about her headache and making her wince.  
"No, I'm not," she replied petulantly.  
"Good!" And before the sputtering Nene could frame an indignant reply to  
that, Priss continued, "That's what you SHOULD get for getting drunk when you  
KNEW that punch was spiked. What happened is all YOUR fault!"  
"Okay, okay! Owwww...." Nene had to cover her ears to stop the pounding.  
Meanwhile, Darlene naturally heard all this. "SPIKED punch??" she  
growled the question out, looking alternately at the friend on the vid-screen  
and the friend beside her. Both looked a little nervous. "No wonder I can't  
remember parts of last night's party...yet," she amended, when became male  
she would remember it all. "I won't bother to ask how, just tell me I didn't  
do anything bad."  
"Not really," Priss conceded, Nene just continued to look guilty.  
"Nothing people will think actually happened, or at least connect to you."  
Darlene sighed with relief.  
"Why are you at Darlene's anyway, Priss? I thought...." Nene trailed off  
with a blush. "Nevermind." Darlene blinked.  
"Thought what?"  
Priss fought back a laugh. "And I thought I had the dirty mind." When  
Darlene turned to her with a frown, she said, "Well, you DO look like you had  
some male...company over." She ducked the angry swing Darlene aimed at her.  
"You were tickling me! And you certainly have a mind filled with IT  
after doing what you did this morning!"  
"So I'm sorry already! It's not like anything really happened with you  
and Leon."  
"Could we not mention THAT again?"  
Nene blinked in astonishment. "LEON?!?!" she gasped, eyes wide. Darlene  
looked pained while Priss grinned.  
"Just...forget it," the red-headed mage groaned. "Nothing happened.  
Priss was being funny and I STILL fail to see the humour," she directed at  
the singer. "Look, I'll phone you later, Nene. I have to clean up, and maybe  
practice some spells on a HANDY volunteer." She smiled at Priss with a glint  
in her eye. "Bye." The image vanished with a fading image of a worried Priss  
inching away from a nastily-smiling Darlene.  
Now I wonder what THAT was all about, Nene wondered. 

"Get outta here, ya bum!"  
A humanoid figure flew through the air into a pile of trash bags, the  
door it had come from slamming shut behind it. There was a groan from the  
form as it rose from the trash, then a snarl as a metallic arm shredded the  
bags it had landed in.  
"My, my. Rough night?" someone commented mockingly.  
The form whirled around when he heard the female voice, stopping in  
momentary amazement to the beauty standing in the alley with him. Then anger  
rose up. "Who the Hell are you, bitch?" he snarled. The female smiled.  
"My name is Yanda and yours is Steelfist. Or at least...it used to be?"  
she reflected, looking pointedly at his false arms.  
Steelfist grit his teeth at the painful memories that remark triggered.  
He was a far cry from the leader of the Steelriders he had used to be, and it  
had all started with an encounter with a trio of girls. Two were trying to  
wake up their red-haired companion when his pack had found them. Easy lays.  
The three would've been a lot of fun, or so they had thought. Even when the  
black-haired one had shown some martial arts knowledge he had her beat with  
his expensive bio-metallic arms.  
Then that red-haired BITCH decided to wake up.  
Apparently not drunk at all, she had fought him. Incredibly, impossibly,  
he had lost when she had SEVERED one of his fucking arms at the joint! After  
that defeat things had slowly gone downhill for him since. He didn't have  
enough money to fix his old limb and had to get a cheap, plain metal one that  
wasn't nearly as powerful. His pack, his FORMER pack, drove him off because  
of the weaker limb and his defeat. He had had nowhere to go except visit old  
so-called friends who eventually threw him out every time.  
Bastards.  
Now he had been thrown out of a bar into trash and run into this weird  
bitch who somehow knew his name. "So what the fuck you want? I got better  
things to do," he sneered.  
"So I see," she said, looking at him standing in garbage. "Very well, I  
offer you something simple."  
"What's that? A freebie?" He leered lewdly.  
"Power." And she held up a glass cylinder that glowed a faint crimson  
the color of blood from within.  
"You crazy, bitch?"  
"Who isn't? Catch!"  
Startled, Steelfist grabbed the vial before it hit his face.  
Unfortunately, it was with his cheapshit fake arm and his indelicate grip  
crushed the glass, releasing the liquid inside and splashing it all over his  
arm and himself. "Fuck!" he shouted, franticly trying to wipe the glowing  
stuff off and failing. "This better not be some poisonous crap or something,  
bitch." Yanda smiled.  
"I would say 'or something.' You might even say it'll make you a  
new...man."  
Steelfist's eyes suddenly widened in panic; the stuff on his clothes had  
begun to MOVE. He looked at his metal arm and saw it beginning to melt. "What  
the hell?" he whimpered, unable to comprehend what was happening. Then the  
places on his skin where the liquid had hit felt like they were starting to  
burn. He tried to say something in his panic but Steelfist had swallowed some  
of the strange stuff and his larynx no longer worked.  
The pain came quickly as something unexpectedly immobilized him.  
Yanda smiled like an expectant mother.  
Another pawn to play.

Chapter Thirty-Four  
===================

ONE WEEK LATER....

In Hot Legs, a red-headed young woman seated at a table was occasionally  
looking from side to side, searching the crown around her. Her posture  
indicated a tenseness for some unknown reason.  
"Hi there."  
Darlene quickly looked around and saw Leon smiling behind her. She  
relaxed at last and indicated the empty chair on the opposite side of the  
table. "Hi, Leon. Have a seat," she offered.  
"Thanks." He sat down and looked quizzically at her. "Why so tense?  
Seems to me I'M the one who should be wound up." Leon couldn't help but be  
amused when the red-head blushed a little.  
"I'm here to apologize for last week. I was a little upset by Priss'  
little joke and I should've realized that was all it was before trying to  
kill you," she finished in a small voice.  
Leon sighed and leaned back in his chair, scratching the back of his  
neck. "I guess I can understand it from your perspective, and it's not like  
I've not been in slightly different but similar circumstances."  
"'Different' meaning 'guilty?'" said Darlene with a hint of a smile.  
Leon didn't comment but his big grin said it all. "As for being tense, just  
think about it." She waved at the crowded bar. "Single female, empty chair,  
raging testosterone levels. Need I say more?" She paused in consideration.  
"They did stop coming for a while after I threw one persistent idiot who  
wouldn't take a hint into a table." Her expression turned slightly nervous as  
she looked from side to side. "It's the two women who whispered in my ear  
that really got me wound up."  
Leon leaned forward with a broad grin. "Hey, you gotta admit you're not  
a bad looking gal."  
"But 'light my leather with your flaming passion'?? Come on!"  
Not able to prevent it, Leon howled his laughter and she looked on with  
a disgusted expression at his reaction. The brown-haired man got hold of  
himself, still wearing his wide grin. "Sorry. Just the look on your face..."  
He shook his head. "I guess I should apologize too for making it hard for you  
to set up this meeting." That was a mind way of putting it, Leon had  
religiously avoided any contact with the mage until she had used Nene to  
deliver the message that she was very sorry about the misunderstanding.  
"No, don't. I WAS a little pissed off. Well, WAY more than a little,"  
Darlene amended guiltily. She looked at her watch as a diversion away from  
the uncomfortable topic. "Priss should be on stage soon." She saw the light  
of interest ignite in Leon's eyes and smirked knowingly.  
"Say... You don't happen to make love potions, do you?" he asked.  
"Sure." Leon did a double take at the quick response. "First I'll need  
the penis of the man you want her to fall in love with, then slice it up  
before pounding it into a fine mush and..." She stopped when Leon's eyes  
threatened to bulge out. It was her turn to laugh at his horrified, pale  
face. "I'm kidding!"  
"I should hope so!" He shook his head slowly. "Your sense of humour  
needs work, Darlene."  
"Sorry, I'm in a bad state of mind right now regarding the 'S' topic."  
She frowned at her watch; it was time for Priss to go on.  
"I wonder what's keeping her," she murmured.

"No goddamn way! Not this time, miss do-whatever-the-hell-I-want-to-do!  
I have had it with you leaving just before the act! You either play, or else  
I circulate to every place in Mega-Tokyo that you're too unreliable to hire!"  
the club manager shouted at Priss' face, which plainly showed her anger and  
hesitation.  
Why did Sylia have to call NOW?? Priss fumed to herself. The leader of  
the Knight Sabers seemed to have an uncanny knack of doing this just before  
a performance and now the singer was facing the result. She had gotten out of  
her singing costume and into her biking leathers before exiting the dressing  
room, but the manager of Hot Legs had been waiting outside the door. He, of  
course, had immediately figured out what she was doing and threw a fit.  
But he'd never threatened her with this particular threat before. If he  
did she and her band would never get a gig again, no matter how good she  
sang. He waited with his big arms crossed for her response, and she hadn't a  
clue what to do, Sylia needed her or she wouldn't have called. Perform, or  
pummel Boomer butt and perish musically. And she had to think of the band  
too.  
Then she got a desperate idea.  
"What if I get someone else to sing?" Priss asked quickly.  
"What?!?" he shouted incredulously, and almost said more but she threw  
up her hands reassuringly.  
"She's good, she's good! I taught her myself."  
The manager frowned, but kept his peace. Knowing singers as he did, he  
knew they didn't often complement rivals on their abilities. Granted, this  
one was in a tight spot, but she seemed to be telling him the truth. Also,  
the crowd outside tonight wasn't too particular as long as there was good  
music, even if Priss' fan-boys would be disappointed. "Where has she  
performed?"  
"Ah...nowhere, but she really is good!" she quickly added to forestall  
his blowing up again. "She just owns a business so singing is just a hobby  
with her. I happen to know she's in the club tonight too."  
Looking down the hallway, the manager signalled one of the bouncers to  
come over. Priss almost sighed in relief, but checked herself as only half  
the battle was won.  
"Okay, what does she look like?" the manager asked.

"You want me to WHAT?!?!?" Darlene demanded incredulously. Priss pressed  
her hands together and gave her a pleading expression. The rest of the band  
had found out and was gathered behind her. They just watched, having had to  
do the exact same thing Priss was doing right now at some point in their  
careers.  
"Just sub for me tonight, please? I REALLY need to go."  
The exasperated red-head put a hand on her forehead, knowing what Priss  
meant by that statement and knew she didn't have much choice in the matter.  
Bloody hell. She hadn't known this would happen when the bouncer had told her  
Priss requested her presence. Polite fellow. Leon had said he'd wait, but  
given what she knew she was going to do, she wished he had left. Gods, why  
me?  
"All right," she sighed in capitulation.  
"Great! I owe you! Bye!" Priss turned to leave.  
"WAIT!!" the manager bellowed, making Priss pause. He pointed at  
Darlene. "Sing something," he demanded.  
She shrugged, took a deep breath, and started singing one of her most  
favourite lines in Priss' songs. "Kon'ya wa Hurricane. Anata wa  
Hurricane...." Darlene stopped, puzzled, when she saw the manager and the  
rest of the band staring at her. What was with them? she wondered.  
Priss smirked, and said, "Told ya! Bye!" And then she was out the door,  
hoping she wouldn't be late.  
Noriko, a slim, black-haired woman and recent replacement for drums when  
the old drummer had quit, stepped up to a still-confused Darlene and gave her  
the once over before grabbing one of the red-head's wrists. "C'mon, girl. If  
you're gonna sing in this dump, you better look the part."  
"What?" Darlene said, wondering what she meant. Then looked at the getup  
the drummer wore and her heart sank when realization hit.  
Oh. No.

Sylia was mildly relieved to see Priss come roaring into Raven's garage  
just in the nick of time.  
"Finally!" Linna remarked. "What took you?"  
"Oh, lay off," the singer disgustedly replied, tearing off her helmet as  
she quickly got off her bike. "It's not my fault you always call just before  
a performance, and this time the manager at Hot Legs had a bigger fit than  
usual." She hurried past them to get to the change rooms.  
"Was there any problem?" Sylia asked as Priss ran past Nene, who had  
just finished changing herself.  
"Nah, I got Darlene to take my place," was the casual reply she got  
before the brown-haired singer closed the door.  
Linna and Nene blinked at each other, and in unison both said,  
"DARLENE?!?!"  
"I wonder how that will turn out," Sylia thought aloud.  
Imagining how Darlene had reacted, Linna snickered. "Too bad we won't be  
there to see."

Leon was beginning to become seriously bored when the members of Priss'  
band started onto the stage, prompting the crowd milling on the dance floor  
to start cheering, screaming, and making other less definable noises. He  
wondered if Darlene had decided to remain backstage; whatever Priss had  
wanted had seemed to be as much a mystery to the red-head as to Leon.  
Speaking of his most favourite singer, she hadn't come out with her  
band, which wasn't Priss' style; she was usually the first. As the mob below  
started murmuring, a half puzzled, half impatient sound, the new drummer for  
the Replicants stepped up to the mike at the front of the stage.  
"Guess you all are wondering where Priss is, huh?" she asked the crowd,  
getting a questioning roar from the audience. "Well, our main lady did one of  
her famous disappearing acts again so she won't be singing tonight." Noriko  
stood there smiling as a wall of groans and boos cascaded over her,  
unaffected by the crowd's disappointed response. Personally, she thought a  
small part of Priss' popularity came from those absences. Before things got  
ugly, she talked into the mike again. "But aren't you wondering why we came  
up on stage?" she said, a note of inquiry in her voice.  
As the crowd's noise died when that comment registered, Leon raised his  
eyes, impressed at the way she handled the large group of music-hungry  
people. Should've gone into politics, he thought as the crowd re-focused  
their attention on the drummer, who smiled again.  
"A friend of Priss, who happened to be here tonight, volunteered to take  
her place and sing for us. I heard a little demonstration earlier and she's  
great. She also knows all of Priss' songs so she'll be giving us a taste of  
her talent tonight."  
"No, she can't mean..." Leon half mumbled, incredulous at the suspicion  
he knew whom the drummer was talking about.  
"So let's introduce..." Noriko turned around and faced backstage,  
"...Darlene!" She paused as the crowd waited. Leon slapped a hand to his face  
when he heard the name.  
Silence.  
A vexed look appeared on the black-haired woman's face when she realized  
no one was coming onstage, there were a few chuckles from the crowd when they  
saw this. She spoke impatiently into the mike. "Darlene, come on! I said you  
don't look that bad."  
"That's what YOU think!" demanded a nervous and female voice from the  
shadows, more people in the crowd laughed and the rest were beginning to  
wonder what the new singer looked like.  
"You said you'd do it," Noriko reminded her, and waited. Apparently,  
that did it for slowly, and carefully, Darlene walked out into the light,  
looking anxiously from side to side. Leon's jaw dropped, then he had to  
stifle his laughter so the red-head wouldn't somehow hear and strangle him  
later.  
She wore a wig the same bright color as her own red hair, but longer and  
in curls. A loosely cut, black tank top covered her upper torso but left her  
middle bare. On her legs were what had to be the tightest set of shiny black  
pants Leon had ever seen, likely made from some kind of plastic, that ended  
between the knee and ankles. A pair of black shoes with high heels were on  
her feet, which was the reason for her careful walk as she'd never worn them  
before. Some large bracelets and makeup finished her quickly assembled stage  
costume. The black clothes contrasted with her whiter-than-normal skin's  
complexion.  
The crowd whooped when the gathered people saw her; while she was an  
unknown, she certainly young, good looking and sexy in her getup. Certainly  
a point in her favor with this gathering.  
Meanwhile, Darlene couldn't recall ever being more embarrassed and  
uncomfortable. The wig made her scalp itch, the heels on the damn shoes were  
murder, the makeup felt caked on her face, Noriko had said it was LIGHT but  
she had her doubts about that, and the damn pants made her feel like she was  
presenting her rear to the world! Priss owed her big time for this, she swore  
to herself. BIG time.  
Her smaller height was only emphasized when she reached a grinning  
Noriko, to whom she gave a brief glare as if this were all the drummer's  
fault. "Glad you could make it," she said blithely before abandoning Darlene  
to get back to her drums.  
Darlene looked down at the floor of the stage, red-faced at the whistles  
she was getting. I hate crowds, I hate crowds, I hate crowds, I HATE crowds!  
she cursed before reluctantly turning to the mass of people watching her. "H-  
hi there," she shakily said into the mike, trying to keep her eyes on the  
audience, "I g-guess I'm the entertainment for tonight."  
The crowd seemed a little disappointed for some reason, then an  
aggrieved voice spoke up near the stage, "Hey! You're the bitch who flipped  
me into the table!"  
Anger flared as she looked down, and, sure enough, it was the asshole  
who wouldn't give up earlier. "Since you seemed to have a HEARING problem,"  
she said, using the mike and making her voice boom loudly in the club, "I  
hoped the impact would make an impression into your deadwood HEAD! Would you  
like another message?" And she held up a fist in his direction. He shut up.  
"That's telling him, Darlene!" shouted a voice from the second level.  
"Thank you VERY much, Leon!" was her sarcastic and heated reply. "I'm  
bloody well nervous enough already!"  
"Then shut up and sing!" cried an unknown voice from the crowd.  
"Fine!" she shouted back furiously. Her anger made her forget her  
nervousness as she turned around to Priss' band, and said, "Hurricane!" More  
of a demand than a request really, but used to a temperamental singer's  
moods, namely Priss, the band ignored the tone and started playing. Darlene  
glared at the audience after taking the mike out of its stand, and waited for  
the time to start. When it came, she was beginning to lose her anger, but  
started anyway without hesitation.  
At first the crowd didn't react when she started out, but as she went on  
the crowd roared their approval and began to dance. Leon felt his jaw drop  
again for the second time that night, Darlene was GOOD! When the hell did she  
learn to do this?! He knew she knew magic, and she also ran her store, but  
this sort of thing took time and he'd never heard a hint of anything like  
this before. He shook his head at the oddities the girl showed sometimes. As  
he listened, he could tell her style was similar to Priss', probably who  
taught her since she was her friend, yet oddly different. More...compelling,  
he decided, than Priss' singing, which always revealed the burning passionate  
emotions of his singer. Darlene's was more for the music than herself. Two  
different ways, yet both beautiful to hear. With a smile he readied himself  
to listen for the rest of the night, and seeing Darlene's current pseudo-  
blissful expression knew it would be a long one.  
Concentrating on her singing at first, Darlene hadn't realized what  
effect her voice had on everyone else. Mostly because of what was happening  
inside; she had only sang by herself, or with Priss, and only briefly in  
female form when the singer had asked her. Now she was singing a full song  
with music filling the air around her, the audience was incidental. At first  
she had been angry, but as she went on she lost that emotion, beginning to  
feel her heart pounding to the pattern of the beat and relaxed into it. The  
feeling was both soothing and energetic. She felt almost a part of it, and  
then...more than just a part.  
Time lost meaning as she willingly lost herself in the music.  
The world was song.

Chapter Thirty-Five  
===================

"So, what did you mean when you said Darlene was covering for you,  
Priss?" Linna asked, sitting in one of the mobile command van's chairs made  
to accommodate her in her hardsuit.  
Priss sighed in a disgusted way. "The manager of Hot Legs basically  
threatened to blacklist me and the band from even dumps like his place." She  
shrugged and fiddled with her helmet. "I DO like to sing so I didn't have  
much of a choice asking Darlene to fill in, and I told you guys she's good;  
she can handle it."  
"Singing, yes, but while a crowd is watching her?" Nene asked dubiously.  
"She'll be fine, all right?" Priss growled, not appreciating the doubt  
that comment placed in her. "So what are we doing tonight anyway?"  
"I finally got a lead on those mysterious disappearances of Boomers and  
homeless several weeks ago and we're going in to check it out."  
"Why? I mean, isn't that ADPolice's job? Not that they would be much  
help." Priss ignored Nene's suddenly indignant posture. Sylia went on.  
"I'm concerned about this and we need act on this information quickly.  
Whomever arranged the vanishing of those Boomers and people without detection  
is powerful and most likely working for something that would not be  
beneficial to this city. I would like to prevent a mass release of Boomers  
and drugged humans into Mega-Tokyo. The damages would be inconvenient to say  
the least, more so if they are equipped with sophisticated gear."  
The others swallowed nervously at the image Sylia gave them.  
"Okay, I guess I can see why you'd want to cut that sort of thing off  
ahead of time," Priss said.  
"I'm glad you agree," was Sylia's dry reply.  
Priss remembered something. "Hey, Linna. Where'd you leave bandanna  
boy?"  
"Ryouga's in my apartment," then she added as an afterthought, "and I  
made sure to tell him not to leave."  
"Is his sense of direction really that bad?" Nene inquired curiously.  
Linna shuddered though the others couldn't notice it. "Yes, you can't  
let him out of your sight or else he wanders off somehow. I just hope leaving  
him in the apartment alone tonight is safe."  
"How do you manage to watch him all the time?"  
Linna chuckled. "Oh, some of the girls in and around my apartment  
complex love to help me with that. Especially when he trains. They love to  
see a muscular young man sweat." Nene and Priss laughed.  
"Linna, really," Sylia reproached, though they could all hear her smile.  
"I shoulda known," Priss commented.  
"Do you need more help?"  
"NENE!" shouted everyone save the red-head.  
"Whaaaaat?"

ELSEWHERE...

Ryouga paused in confusion. How did all these people get in Linna's  
living room? he wondered.  
Above the lost boy's head was a sign.  
It read: "WELCOME TO MEGA-TOKYO MALL - CENTRAL PLAZA"

OUTSIDE KS MOBILE COMMAND CENTER...

Mackie watched from the inside of the van as Sylia conferred with the  
members of the team. They were hidden in a back alley several blocks from  
their target, a wise precaution to take in case something went wrong.  
"All right, we'll enter the building on three sides to reduce the  
chances of someone slipping out the back door. Priss, take the north side,  
Linna, there's an alley on the east so you come through on that side, Nene  
and I will take the front. The west is wide open so that should not be an  
option for those inside if they try to escape, and if they do we'll not have  
much trouble tracking them. If you find the main computer wait for Nene and  
she'll download anything of value. And in the case of personnel, if they look  
important knock them out and leave them for ADPolice"  
"Yeah, they're great for clean up," Priss quipped.  
"Hey! Stop that!" Nene told her, angry over the insult to her police  
organization.  
"Why? It's true enough."  
"Enough you two," Sylia said, stopping Nene's retort. "Let's get to  
work."  
"You got it, Sylia. See you inside!" Priss jumped away, her air jets and  
powered hardsuit giving her extra bounce as she leaped away into the night.  
More silently, but after a friendly wave to the others, Linna followed.  
"Ready, Nene?" Sylia asked the power-suited red-head, who nodded  
affirmatively despite still being angry with Priss. Together they jumped into  
the darkness.  
Mackie stood up and closed the van door so no one would notice anything  
suspicious. He wished his sister and the others luck even though the mission  
sounded simple. They shouldn't have any trouble tonight, he thought.  
The shadows outside the van loomed ominous in the night.

Priss landed softly with only noise around her the quiet hiss of her air  
jets. The building's few windows and single door on her side of the building  
were shown clearly on her suit's screen.  
"Sylia," she said as she opened a channel to her leader. "Looks quiet on  
my side. Can I go in?"  
"No, Priss, stay outside and come in if there's any trouble."  
"Aw, man..." Priss groaned, she knew how likely that was.  
"Nothing in the alley, Sylia," Linna reported.  
"Good. Stay outside, just in case. Nene and I are going in."  
"Okay, Sylia. Be careful."  
"We will. Out."  
Priss sighed, resigned to play sentry post for the rest of the mission. 

Sylia waited as Nene rapidly disabled the electronic security on the  
front door, studying the structure they were breaking into. There was no  
outward sign of activity, or security for that matter, which wasn't unusual  
if someone was trying to keep something well hidden from prying eyes; the  
absence of obvious and elaborate security system was almost as good as having  
one. She had been told a couple of kids had wandered into the building, and  
had never come out again or seen from again. There had been a third person  
with the group but he had stayed outside. After a while, several large and  
mean looking men had discretely searched the area but the boy had escaped  
notice and got away to tell his tale, which eventually reached Sylia. This,  
and the other information she had gathered, made her decide that this was  
most likely one of the hideouts of whoever masterminded the Boomer thefts.  
Nene, finished with her task, stood up and opened the door.  
Not a sound. Perfect.  
Silently, the two entered the large hall which was the building's main  
entrance. After careful scanning, Nene told Sylia there was a lot of  
electrical activity deeper in the structure. The leader of the Knight Sabers  
nodded and they cautiously proceeded in that direction.

Priss had started to argue with herself whether or not it had been a  
good idea to get Darlene to substitute for her when she saw the door she was  
watching open. She tensed.  
And waited.  
And waited some more.  
"What the Hell?" she muttered. The door was wide open but no one was  
coming out and she couldn't scan anything through the doorway. Priss began to  
feel uneasy. "Sylia?" No response. "Nene?"  
"What's up, Priss?" Linna asked over the encrypted communications  
channel they all shared.  
"Something weird is going on, that's what, and now I can't reach Sylia  
or Nene," Priss answered her, becoming more anxious by the second. She heard  
Linna try contacting the others but she got no results either. "Dammit, I  
think something's really wrong here."  
"Do you think we should go in?"  
Priss didn't need much time to think that over. "Hell, yes!" she said,  
leaping out from her hiding spot and quickly coming to the open door. There  
was nobody she could see inside so she cautiously started in. "I'll keep  
talking along the way."  
"Wait, Priss! Let's go in to..." Linna's voice died when Priss got  
several feet inside the room. The singer realized that there was some kind of  
jamming going on, relieving her somewhat as this was probably the reason she  
couldn't contact Sylia or Nene. Still...worry gnawed at her as she walked  
deeper in.  
Who had opened the door? And why?

"Priss? Do you hear me? Priss!" When Linna got no response she cursed a  
little at her friend's headstrong approach, more annoyed Priss had gone in  
without backup than her methods. By now Linna had a strong feeling some kind  
of jamming was going on inside the building, otherwise she would had heard  
SOMETHING from Priss, at least she hoped that was it.  
She had just about decided to follow Priss in when the door to the long  
alley opened and she hugged closer to the dumpster she hid behind. Two large  
men exited into the alley, looking from side to side.  
Linna's scanners confirmed her guess: Boomers. She decided to wait a few  
minutes more before springing a surprise attack on them and getting inside.  
She was coming to the conclusion there was more here than met the eye and had  
a bad feeling about this mission.  
The former dancer was quite shocked when the dumpster she was hiding  
behind had its contents practically explode from the bin when two previously  
hidden forms leaped high into the night air.  
Boomers!  
"What?!?!" was her startled cry before she jumped from her old spot, one  
of the Boomers made a small crater with its fist as it missed her narrowly.  
The other started shooting at her as she weaved and dodged the sudden hail of  
firepower.  
She had figured she could take these two on but then the two Boomers  
that had exited the building a little earlier arrived, their disguises shed  
and ready for battle.  
One Boomer was behind her now, blocking the way out while the two from  
the building blocked the other way, and the fourth was rising into a crouch  
from where it had tried to hit her. Linna's heart pounded frantically as the  
four began to advance.  
This was bad. Real, REAL bad.

Sylia nodded to Nene, who nodded back, a little nervously but otherwise  
all right. The white-suited Saber burst through the door with Nene following  
close behind.  
The room was filled with blinking panels and screens, but was empty save  
for a large chair at the end of the room with someone visibly sitting in it  
and making unknown adjustments on the panels.  
"Freeze!" Sylia ordered, aiming her palm blaster at the unknown  
controller, who immediately stopped. And turned the chair around to reveal  
herself to be a very attractive blonde woman, with a distinct lack of fear  
and/or startlement that took Sylia slightly aback.  
"So," the woman said, smiling at the armoured invaders to her domain.  
"Knight Sabers."  
Nene gave a startled exclamation and pointed at two screens. "Look!"  
Sylia did and found herself biting off her own reaction; each screen  
showed Linna and Priss fighting. Linna with a bunch of Boomers in her alley  
and looking overwhelmed, and Priss fighting some monster Boomer in a large  
room that was likely somewhere in the same building they were in.  
"Call them off," Sylia ordered the woman in an icy tone that showed she  
meant business.  
"Really?" The woman smiled again and swivelled her chair around so that  
she was mostly hidden from sight again. "And you'll kill me if I don't? That  
would be too bad seeing as we were waiting such a long time for you to come."  
"What?!" Sylia and Nene exclaimed.  
"And we DO want you to stay."  
Then the floor beneath Sylia and Nene erupted with a powerful electrical  
discharge, freezing their systems and making them scream, before exploding.  
The two Sabers lost consciousness in fire and pain. They landed hard on the  
floor after hitting a transparent shield that they hadn't seen, which had  
safely protected the other occupant of the room.  
Yanda stood and walked over to the stronger-than-steel plastic that  
separated her from the two Sabers. She looked the two forms over carefully as  
if thinking of something else.  
And smiled as she approvingly patted the transparent shield.

Priss cursed venomously before dodging a swing that would have taken her  
head off. What the FUCK was this...this goddamned THING?!?!? She had entered  
this darkened room and had immediately known it was a trap when the door  
slammed shut behind her. She had whirled around when she saw something rise  
out of the darkness, and rise, and rise.  
The Boomer was twelve feet tall, if not taller, massive as hell, and had  
not spoken a word or growl since its initial attack. She could see openings  
for laser lens on its chest, particle cannons on the arms, and even a few  
missile holders at the waist. It hadn't fired any of that armament though.  
The reason for this became painfully obvious: to demonstrate it didn't NEED  
them to beat the crap out of her.  
And the maddening thing about it was that it didn't. She hadn't  
hesitated using her own weapons, but its thick armour was too strong to  
penetrate and it was fast despite the bulky appearance; her hardsuit was  
dented and she was bruised underneath. The Knight Saber's main strength was  
teamwork, but she was alone against this monster.  
"Goddamn Boomer!" she shouted in frustration. She almost got hit again  
when hidden speakers came to life.  
"Ha hah hah hah hah!" cackled a male voice, "Do you like my little  
creation, Knight Saber?"  
"Who the fuck are you? Argh!!" Priss finished with a cry of pain as the  
Boomer connected and launched her across the room to painfully land ten feet  
away.  
"Someone who you have faced before, or at least my beautiful creations,"  
and the voice turned ugly, "before you destroyed them!! I am Doctor Miriam!"  
the voice declared arrogantly.  
"Yeah? Go to hell!" Priss groaned out as she managed to stand again.  
Unfortunately, she did remember the name from the incident at ADPolice and  
knew things were Not Good at the moment.  
There was an incoherent growl over the speakers but when he spoke again  
the doctor had calmed down. "As much as I would like to send you there first,  
I regretfully cannot right now. However..."  
Faster than it had moved before, the Boomer leaped forwards and grabbed  
the blue Knight Saber by the neck and raised her slightly off the ground. The  
suit afforded some protection against the strangulation, but not much.  
Breathing was hard to do at the moment.  
"...that does not mean I can't have some measure of enjoyment."  
The last thing Priss saw was the Boomer's fist coming towards her head,  
after that same fist had pummled her stomach a few times of course.  
Then blackness swallowed her whole to the tune of Miriam's laughter.

Linna was starting towards the fading edge of unconsciousness rapidly as  
she was continually punched by the Boomer in front of her. She had taken one  
of her opponents out with her charged mono-ribbons, but one had gotten a grip  
on one of her arms long enough for another of its kind to grab her other arm.  
Then the third had started pounding on her before she could retaliate, but  
not as hard as it could have, oddly.  
Why don't they finish me off? Linna thought, somewhat dazed. Then an  
extra hard punch doubled her over and the two androids holding her dropped  
her unceremoniously to the ground. The green Saber tried standing up, but  
stopped when she noticed the Boomers weren't attacking anymore and were even  
backing away. Something was up and she found out what when a familiar voice  
cut through the ringing in her ears.  
"Knight Saber."  
Linna jerked her head up to find the owner of the voice. Her eyes  
widened behind her helmet and she gasped aloud in shock. It COULDN'T be!! He  
was DESTROYED!!  
"I have a...present for you to deliver."  
And the one known as Largo laughed.

Chapter Thirty-Six  
==================

He'd been told his objective was here.  
The information given him was correct, the bitch was in the club. What  
he hadn't expected was for her to be singing onstage. He never had much of an  
ear for music, but even he could tell she wasn't doing badly; which probably  
translated to excellent for people who cared. Doing what he came to do in  
front of everyone in this shit club probably wasn't wise, but who gave a  
fuck; he'd love an audience for when he confronted the bitch.  
No. Not bitch.  
Darlene. At last he finally had a name for the slut.  
It would make killing her far more satisfying.

"Would you like another drink?"  
Leon looked up at the waitress with a smile and shook his head before  
turning back to watch the stage. I wonder how much longer she'll go, he  
wondered, she's almost gone through all of Priss' songs, not that it looks  
like she's going to be able to continue for much longer.  
True enough, however euphoric the music was to Darlene, it was loosing  
its hold on the tired red-head as she finished another song. The groans  
behind her when the band stopped playing echoed her own feelings. She  
couldn't believe she had sung for, she checked a large digital clock on one  
wall, two and a half bloody HOURS?!? She would have shivered but lacked the  
energy. Getting lost in the music had been freaky, she forcibly ignored the  
yearning feeling the recollection of her trance-like state caused. One more  
song, then that's it for me, she decided.  
She picked up the mike, and with a slightly hoarse voice said, "I think  
one more and then I gotta quit folks." She coughed. "My throat ain't used to  
this despite the fun." And I'm pooped to boot, she added to herself, hearing  
the band behind her sigh in relief. There were groans in the crowd at her  
words but after the longer than usual session they had little to complain  
about.  
Except for one person.  
"Awwww... Is the little bitch tired?" a voice called out. Most of the  
crowd swivelled to look for the source of the comment. A big man with a sneer  
on his face below dark shades was walking towards the stage, people moving  
aside for him when they saw his size.  
"Pardon me??" Darlene demanded over the mike, not a little disturbed for  
she felt she knew this person coming closer to the stage. "Who are you?"  
"Oh no, you've forgotten me. Well, I certainly haven't forgotten you,  
slut!" He held up an arm, making the jacket he wore slide down and expose the  
metallic limb underneath.  
The mage's blood, which had started to boil, cooled when she saw the  
arm. "Steelfist," she said flatly, the shades had confused her but the arm  
and the manner was a dead giveaway.  
"Bingo," was his snarled response.  
Uh oh, Leon thought warily as he watched events unfolding below him.  
What did Darlene do to this asshole? I think I'd better get closer. And the  
ADPoliceman left his seat, heading for the stairs to the lower level.  
"Yeah, well, I wasn't particularly concerned with your welfare after  
what you and your gang tried to do to me and my friends," Darlene told  
Steelfist, who had reached the area below the stage. She wasn't surprised  
when he vaulted up onto the stage with one of his hands; the asshole wouldn't  
care for him talking up to her.  
"You ruined my fucking arm, bitch!" he shouted.  
She took a breath to calm herself; any more remarks like that and she'd  
probably hate herself in the morning for breaking every bone in his body.  
"Not hard for someone trained in martial arts style I've trained in. Now get  
of the bloody stage! I don't want to have to do more to you." Her mood wasn't  
improved by his scornful laughter.  
"More!" Steelfist laughed again. "Oh, it's way too late for that,  
bitch."  
"Stop. Calling. Me. That," Darlene grated out.  
"Got to show you my big surprise first."  
"What??"  
"Yeah," Steelfist said, smiling for the first time. He reached up and  
took off his glasses.  
His eyes were the red eyes of a Boomer.  
Skin shredded and flew away with clothing as internal bio-technical  
systems expanded the former human into a Boomer's battlemode. He looked  
somewhat like a 55-C Boomer, but instead of a factory-made precision look his  
exterior was like sun-heated plastic, it was slightly deformed in appearance.  
More organic.  
Taking advantage of Darlene's wide-eyed shock, Steelfist moved with  
beyond human speed and caught the red-head by the throat with one of his huge  
metal hands. He lifted the choking Darlene with one hand, making her dangle  
in the air. "Like I said: surprise." The voice was now the only indication  
that one could tell Steelfist was amused.  
When the crowd had seen the transformation, people immediately started  
running away from the scene; Mega-Tokyo residents knew very well what a  
Boomer could do. Leon was hard pressed as he tried to force his way in the  
opposite direction. When he was through, he took in the sight of Darlene  
being held by the throat by an unusual-looking Boomer, swore, and pulled out  
his gun. "ADPolice! Let the girl go!" he ordered the machine.  
Steelfist laughed and aimed his free arm at the detective, who ducked  
behind a concrete support pillar; just in time too, as the android began  
firing the machine gun built into its arm.  
Darlene, who was starting to see spots of light, took advantage of the  
distraction and summoned her sword. With its usual purple flash, it appeared  
in her right hand and she thrust it forward. The blade plunged into  
Steelfist's lower torso and causing him considerable pain when she jerked the  
ultra-sharp blade out roughly, spilling Boomer fluids from the wound.  
"You fucking bitch!" he snarled, halting fire on Leon so he could cover  
the wound until it sealed. In furious anger, the once-human Steelfist threw  
the blacking-out red-head at another large concrete pillar with beyond-human  
strength. Darlene flew almost in a straight line at the column, until she  
hit. Her eyes jerked open in shocked pain as concrete slammed into her from  
behind with piledriver force. For a moment she hung there, the stone wall  
showing cracks around her slightly embedded form, then her eyes rolled up  
into her head and she slowly fell forward onto the ground.  
"Darlene!!" Leon shouted, shocked and stunned. Hearing the Boomer's  
malicious laugh the brown-haired officer's eyes narrowed and his face became  
grim. Stepping out from behind his cover, he aimed his gun and fired several  
rounds at the killer machine. All he managed to do was catch its attention.  
"If you wanted to play, asshole, why didn't you just say so?" the Boomer  
commented evilly, standing straight as it no longer leaked fluids and curled  
an arm so that a fist was pointed in a 45 degree angle from the floor. A  
foot-long blade snicked out from a sheath and gleamed evilly in the club  
lights.  
Oh fuck, Leon thought as the Boomer jumped off the stage and started  
walking confidently in his direction, now what the hell do I do now?  
Stall, he decided. Stall a LOT.  
"So what's your problem anyway, you damn Boomer?" he called out, keeping  
the solid pillar between him and the android. He had no illusions he would  
last very long against the thing with just his gun. Hell, it would likely be  
the shortest fight he'd ever have for the rest of his brief life.  
"I lost my gang because of that bitch. Now she's dead and you'll be  
next," Steelfist replied, smoothly circling the column that Leon was trying  
to keep between the two with a predator's ease.  
"Gang?? Since when do Boomers have gangs??" Leon was beginning to  
believe this thing was seriously demented.  
"Boomers don't, but then I only became one recently."  
"WHAT?!" Leon couldn't believe his ears. "Are you saying you used to be  
human?!" He stopped when the Boomer paused.  
"Yeah, cop. And loving being a Boomer." Steelfist posed his newly  
robotic body mockingly. "The latest secret technology: little, tiny machines  
that can do some amazing shit on a person. I'm not really a true Boomer  
because I was human but I'm close enough to make the difference not worth  
crap." The thing clenched a fist from remembered anger. "My own gang threw me  
out and my life was becoming one that was being thrown into a dumpster. Until  
someone...helped me." The android chuckled. "Now I'm getting my revenge."  
"Is revenge worth losing your humanity?" Leon demanded.  
"Why should I care? Humans are fucking nothing." Steelfist moved  
ominously closer and scraped the armblade chillingly along the concrete  
column's surface. "Just like you're gonna be."  
Leon was about to reply to that when a flying chair smashed into the  
Boomer's head, staggering it forward a bit from sheer surprise but otherwise  
leaving it unharmed. Steelfist whirled around angrily, and snarled at what he  
saw. Leon's expression was one of relieved surprise and renewed concern.  
Darlene glared from across the room, her thinking was a little fuzzy but  
her anger was certainly not. Her throat had been hurt by the Boomer's tight  
fist and she couldn't talk at the moment. The chair she had thrown had gotten  
her opponent's attention so she clenched her fists and charged headlong  
towards the blue android, a glow starting to form around her right fist.  
Steelfist roared his own fury, the bitch was tougher than he had thought  
but he had more tricks up his sleeve. His chest panels opened, revealing an  
array of lens for his heat weapon. His prey responded by dramatically  
increasing her momentum and headed straight for him! Stupid bitch! he thought  
scornfully as the array started to glow. Time to FRY!  
What happened next was too fast for Leon to see. Just as Steelfist  
started to fire, Darlene leaped ahead, glowing fist first. She connected  
microseconds after Steelfist's weapon went off and the mage started to burn.  
However, the ki force she had collected around her fist exploded outwards.  
She had experimented with the directionless energies she had aimed at Leon in  
her past fury at finding him in her bed. It was a new technique, fairly  
simple to build up, but hard to sustain until the strike. Dubbed the  
'Concussion Fist' it lived up to its name as the blast it created shattered  
the lens in Steelfist's chest and causing massive energy feedback from the  
disrupted firing. The two fighters flew apart from the blast and the  
android's misfire. Darlene landed hard on a table, shattering it, while  
Steelfist slammed hard into the column Leon had been using for cover and was  
still.  
"Damn it!" Leon swore as he ran to kneel beside the slightly smoking  
mage. "What the HELL were you thinking of??" he demanded of the semi-  
conscious Darlene.  
She managed a sheepish, if painful, shrug as she struggled to get up.  
Her skin was blistered in some places, and reddish on the rest. The wig was  
still smoking as she weakly took it off and let it drop to the floor. When  
Darlene noticed Leon waiting for a reply she pointed at her throat and made  
a croaking sound. He understood what that meant.  
"Can't talk?" The red-head nodded, then put on an expression of surprise  
when the ADPolice officer slid arms beneath her and picked her up. She would  
have protested but her throat wouldn't allow that. "Yeah, I know; you don't  
need my help, right?" Leon said, and chuckled at the sheepish look she gave  
him knowing that was what she would have said if she had been able too.  
"Frankly, you look like hell, Darlene."  
"And that's where you'll both be going, you shitheads!"  
Even burdened by Darlene's weight, Leon instinctively ducked forwards  
just enough to miss being sliced in half by a blue particle beam. He knew the  
open area was suicide for them to be running around so he ran for backstage.  
"You don't get away THAT easily, bastards!" Steelfist snarled. He  
started forward to pursue but then he was hit by a literal shower of bullets  
from above. ADPolice had finally arrived. Several of them were on the second  
story while the rest were on the first. All firing at the once human  
Steelfist.  
The android couldn't afford being hit in a vital spot now; his internal  
circuits in his chest region were burnt out in a major way from the blast,  
limiting his mobility severely. He computed possibilities and almost laughed  
at the obvious solution. "Check THIS out, cops!" he cried out, and, in an  
apparently suicidal manouver, jumped closer to the officers on the level he  
was on. Now he could do what he wanted; which was to cut a huge semi-circle  
out of the upper floor with his mouth cannon. The loss of support caused the  
second story, and the cops above with it, to collapse onto those beneath.  
Steelfist had jumped safely back and gazed at his handiwork. "Don't mess with  
a Boomer when he's got a job to do, assholes," he said mockingly before  
turning away.  
He still had prey to kill.

Leon sighed with relief as they exited into the night air via the back  
door. He'd heard the commotion as they had left and knew that ADPolice had  
finally arrived. The loud crash and following silence hadn't sounded good  
though.  
"How are you doing?" he asked Darlene, who was looking more alert than  
she had been a few minutes ago.  
"Beh...tah," she croaked out. "Fah heela." It was true; her skin looked  
a little better already.  
"Why didn't you blast him with a spell?" Leon finally asked as he tried  
to decide what to do next. Darlene's annoyed pointing to her throat clued him  
in on why she hadn't. "You need to talk for that?" The Look she gave him was  
answer enough, and he wondered how women were able to communicate that 'gee,  
I'm glad you finally figured it out, Einstein' message with just a facial  
expression. Leon decided to let her stand on her own then if she felt that  
good and gently placed her on her feet. She wobbled a bit on the first step,  
but steadied herself on the next and sighed in relief at being able to stand  
again.  
"Wih wai?" she croaked.  
The wall belonging to Hot Legs exploded and they both ducked for cover.  
When they looked up, the blue form of the transformed Steelfist stood in the  
hole that he had made, light from inside shadowing him ominously before he  
stepped into the alley.  
"Here we go again," Leon muttered.  
"You've cost me a lot of pain, losers," Steelfist announced. Leon and  
Darlene had to duck behind a trash bin when the android fired some bullets in  
their direction. "I'm REALLY gonna enjoy ripping your guts out."  
"Ah...excuse me?" a voice asked. The shooting stopped. "Can you tell me  
where I am?" Startled, Leon and Darlene looked at each other then peeked  
around the dumpster and saw a familiar, thoroughly misplaced person.  
Ryouga?!?!  
Steelfist was too angry to note the unusual attire of the bandanna-  
wearing young man. "Do you think I give a shit, asshole? I'm busy!" He shot  
a few bullets at the eternally lost boy, but with his lightning fast reflexes  
Ryouga managed to dodge.  
"Why did you attack me?!" he demanded, then noticed the two further down  
the alley. "Darlene? Leon?" Steelfist was surprised at this.  
"So, you know them? Then I guess I have one more piece of shit to kill."  
If he knew Ryouga better he would have known not to say something like  
that, Darlene reflected to herself as she saw the fanged boy almost visibly  
swell with anger. "Ooo... Ba' 'ove." Leon looked at her in puzzlement but she  
just smirked at him.  
Ryouga had been suppressing his anger and despair ever since he had  
found out he had somehow wandered into another universe. Now this metal thing  
was threatening to kill him AND the only person who could send him back home.  
No!!!  
He grabbed several bandannas from his head and started spinning them  
with a furious expression.  
"What the fuck are you doing? Waving surrender?" Steelfist laughed, not  
noticing Darlene pull Leon behind the dumpster for cover.  
The furious martial artist loosed slightly over ten of his ki-charged  
bandannas at Steelfist, who was just beginning to wonder where the young man  
had got all the bandannas from but just stood there amused. He wasn't amused  
for long; several sheered through sections of his legs, severing many  
supporting biotech muscles and moving joints. He started to fall as others  
went through his arms, torso, and one partly through his head. If he had  
moved, less would have hit but, unknowing of the deadliness of the bandanna  
in a Hibiki's hands, instead stood still and presented a prefect target for  
Ryouga.  
Steelfist collapsed to the ground, feeling the pain and major systems  
failures that his body told him about. Hearing an external noise, Steelfist  
looked up and saw a descending fist with his one good optic.  
Then he saw no more.

Leon stared as Ryouga, with an expression of disgust at the greasy  
fluids on his hand, pulled his fist out of the crushed skull of the Boomer  
who used to be Steelfist. "How...?"  
Darlene coughed. "'Ouga berry 'ood fighter," she managed and was pleased  
with the results; her voice was improving.  
"I wonder if he's interested in joining ADPolice," he mused as the  
destroyer of the android came over to them after a puzzled glance at the  
fallen machine. Darlene snickered, knowing there wasn't much chance of that,  
and headed for the door. "Hey, where are you going?" Leon called out,  
surprised.  
The red-head turned around with an annoyed look and used her hands to  
call attention to the rest of her body. The top she was wearing was slightly  
charred, but the plastic pants must be painful when they were melted like the  
way they looked now. She was also barefoot, having lost those high heels  
somewhere along the way. In short, she was a mess; a fact not truly noticed  
by Leon until she called his attention to it. And upon seeing his sheepish  
look she stomped back into the building to change back into her normal  
clothes.  
"Um...Leon?" Ryouga's puzzled voice turned Leon's attention back to the  
young man. "What was that thing I took out doing here?"  
The ADPoliceman sighed and started explaining.

Chapter Thirty-Seven  
====================

"Oh man, I hurt," Darlene croaked as she sank into the passenger seat of  
Leon's car. At least she could talk semi-normally now but bruises were  
beginning to show on her neck where the transformed Steelfist had gripped  
her, she touched them briefly before flinching from the pain. Another person  
sitting in the back made her turn around. "By the way, Ryouga, thanks for the  
rescue." Her smile made the normally shy young man turn slightly red at the  
praise.  
"It was no trouble," he said, but hopeful eyes focused on her. "How long  
before we can go back?"  
"Probably another day or two." She saw joy flare in his eyes and warned,  
"I had a breakthrough a few days ago but I need to test it first." The  
driver's door opened then.  
"Test what?" Leon asked as he got behind the driver's seat.  
"The spell to take me and Ryouga back to the universe we came from,"  
Darlene said, seeing no reason not to tell him. He turned to look at her in  
shock in the middle of starting the car.  
"You're leaving?" Darlene nodded reluctantly. "Have you told Priss and  
the others?"  
"I was tonight, but she left," she said crossly, still mildly annoyed at  
what the singer had gotten her into.  
Leon started the car and began the drive to Darlene's place without a  
word. The mage noticed this and asked, "Sorry to see me go?"  
"Well, yeah," he admitted, "I may not have been as close as the others  
to you but I consider you a friend. You talk like it'll be a long time before  
you come back and I hate those kind of good-byes."  
"Oh, I see." Darlene smiled mischievously. "Guess I haven't told you  
about the funny things crossing universes does to travellers." Leon glanced  
at her, puzzled.  
"Pardon?"  
"I could spend fifty years outside this universe and come back at almost  
the exact time I left. It will be a long time for me, but considering I have  
a longer than usual lifetime ahead of me I doubt you'll notice."  
"Really??" Leon pondered this. "I always wanted to have a year's  
vacation in a day," he mused, making Darlene laugh.  
"Maybe next time."

When Leon dropped the two off at the store, Darlene certainly didn't  
expect Sylvie, Anri, Linna, and Mackie anxiously waiting for her.  
"Darlene! Thank god you're back! I... What happened to you?!" Linna  
exclaimed in disbelief, finally seeing the red-head's injuries.  
"Somebody Borged that Steelfist guy we fought when I first arrived."  
Uncomprehending eyes stared at her so she sighed and tried again. "Somebody,  
somehow, turned him into a Boomer and he attacked me at Hot Legs." She  
winced. "Took me by surprise but Ryouga finally wandered by and destroyed  
him."  
"But I left him at..." Linna stopped trying to understand Ryouga's  
presence and shook her head angrily. "We don't have TIME for this! Mackie,  
show her." The black-haired, younger brother of Sylia nodded and picked up  
some kind of remote video viewer, giving it to Darlene after pushing a button  
on a small keypad. The face that appeared on the monitor jolted Darlene so  
much she almost dropped the machine.  
Largo!  
"Good evening to those who watch this little recording of mine," the  
image of the long-thought-dead hyperboomer spoke, "and most of all to the  
Crystal Knight, to whom I truly hope sees this before sunrise tonight. Sadly,  
you were not with the Knight Sabers as I had hoped but I let one go in the  
hopes that she would be able to contact you." Largo's face smiled. "We have  
a score to settle, you and I, and with three of the Knight Sabers as hostages  
I feel you will find my invitation most compelling." He chuckled evilly.  
Darlene's gaze could've burned holes in the screen.  
"This should be amusing. Here is what I have planned: Priss, oh yes I  
know all their names, will be located here," and an image of Mega-Tokyo  
sprang up to dominate most of the screen, a flashing green dot supposedly the  
place Largo mentioned as he went on. "You, Crystal Knight, will go to a  
second location," and a red dot appeared on the other side of the city, near  
the edge of Mega-Tokyo ended. "Alone. And enter through the gates. If you do  
not, all three hostages will die and I will release all the Boomers I have  
into the city. If you do not come before sunrise tonight I will do this  
anyway.  
"Do come soon," he finished jovially.  
The image of Largo disappeared, leaving the map and the two flashing  
blips on the screen.  
"Have you located both places, Mackie?" Darlene asked in a tight voice.  
"Yes."  
The red-head nodded, then proceeded to crush the viewer between her two  
hands. As the pieces fell to the floor, she commented, "That felt good." The  
sonofabitch! she mentally growled to herself. "I guess I don't need to figure  
out who was behind the attack on me at Hot Legs. But it sounded like he  
didn't know the relationship between the Crystal Knight and I. That's  
something the bastard would've definitely mentioned if he knew."  
"So what do we do?" Linna worried.  
"About the part with the Crystal Knight? Not much choice there, but for  
Priss he didn't mention anything so he likely expects a rescue attempt, and  
doesn't care if someone attempts it. How's your hardsuit?" she asked Linna.  
"Not in good shape," the raven-haired Saber worried.  
"That's okay, I'll fix it before you go."  
"Is there anything we can do?" Sylvie said. "Priss is our friend too."  
Darlene hesitated. "There WAS something I...fixed, but... No," she shook  
her head. "No, you can't."  
"Fix? Darlene, if you have something I can use to save Priss then tell  
me!" Sylvie demanded.  
"Even the D.D.?" sighed Darlene.  
Sylvie paled and looked shaken, Anri looked at her with concern. For  
good reason; the D.D. Battlemover had been the weapon Sylvie had used to get  
the data disk containing the information to make her and Anri no longer  
dependant on human blood. But the battle computer's AI had taken control when  
Sylvie had been wounded during a battle with two security Boomers, and had  
initiated a timer to detonate a micro-neutron bomb that would've destroyed  
Mega-Tokyo. Priss had had to wound her fatally to deactivate the D.D. and it  
was only Twister's intervention that had saved her.  
Priss...  
The sexaroid cast off her fear and with renewed determination told  
Darlene, "Even that!" Darlene nodded; it was her choice.  
"You don't need to worry much about it, actually.. I altered a lot of  
the hardware and DEFINITELY rewrote certain parts of the software. It won't  
take over like last time. I thought of giving it to you as a joke but when I  
finished I realized that wouldn't be such a good idea and left it in  
mothballs."  
"So it'll be just me and Sylvie?" Linna said.  
"I'll help," Mackie and Ryouga offered at the same time.  
"No way, Mackie! You don't have the combat experience," Linna told him  
firmly. "I don't want to tell Sylia that I let you get killed." The teenager  
looked rebellious, but knew the truth when he heard it. "We'll need you in  
the van again."  
"Not you either, Ryouga," Darlene added. "You were lucky today that it  
was Steelfist you fought and not a true combat Boomer. They play for keeps  
and I don't want to tell Akane and Ranma you were killed by some crazy  
androids in another dimension." That got to him, and the lost boy's anger  
deflated. Which was good; while he was an excellent martial artist, he wasn't  
trained to fight hordes of Boomers. She frowned. "Two isn't enough though.  
Even with the modified D.D. you'll need help..."  
Then she got an idea.

"Leon!" An officer shouted. "Phone for you!"  
"Got it," Leon replied as he picked up the receiver and pushed a button  
on his phone. What appeared on his vid-screen made him sit bolt-upright in  
shocked surprise.  
"Long time no see, officer McNichol," the Blue Bullet said, face  
obscured as usual by his blue helmet. "I suppose this is a bit of a shock."  
"Given that you are supposed to be dead, that's an understatement!" was  
all Leon could come up with as a retort. The Bullet chuckled.  
"I'd love to chat longer but I have little time. I've heard that two of  
your officers have acquired some...unusual abilities."  
"You hear some funny rumours..." Leon replied neutrally.  
"Well, here's another: apparently, the Knight Sabers ran into some  
trouble with an old enemy and were caught." Leon's stomach muscles tightened.  
"One was released to inform certain parties. That party will be going  
somewhere while another place was set up to occupy any help he might call.  
The bait's the blue suited Saber."  
Priss. Damn it! "So why are you calling me?" he demanded.  
"The enemy is the mastermind behind all those Boomer thefts weeks ago.  
Isn't that ADPolice's department, or rather, YOUR department, Inspector?"  
"That's right."  
"To ensure the survival of the Saber I've convinced the remaining Saber  
and...another to accept you, your partner, and those two unique officers I  
mentioned. I suspect they'll need the help. Do you wish to accept?" Leon  
frowned at the screen.  
"I suspect you know the answer or else you wouldn't have bothered to  
call." He sighed, knowing he didn't really have a choice. "All right, where?"  
"Meeting point being transmitted. They'll meet you there." The Bullet  
paused. "Thank you, Leon." The image blipped out, leaving the information  
that had been received behind.  
Leon sighed again and sat back wearily in his chair. This was going to  
be one of those long, long nights.

"WHAT is THAT??" Linna exclaimed in disgusted fascination at the gooey  
concoction Darlene was scarfing down like there was no tomorrow. She had come  
up to tell the red-head they were ready only to find her eating...something.  
Darlene paused.  
"Honey, some sugar, chocolate sundae syrup, more sugar, peanut butter,  
yet more sugar, molasses, milk... Did I forget to mention sugar?"  
Despite her hurry to get moving, Linna turned almost as green as her  
suit. "My God! How can you EAT that?!?!"  
"I have to. I want to make sure I have enough energy for this trap." The  
rest of the stuff oozed out when she quickly put the drinking glass to her  
lips and drank. When she finished, she looked at Linna. "Don't worry, I'm  
almost done," she added, pointing to an extremely large cooking pot where  
Linna realized Darlene had mixed everything together.  
The aerobics instructor fled downstairs.  
Darlene finally relaxed and grimaced, revealing her disgust; the stuff  
WAS terrible, but she felt she had to have this extra energy. Still... She  
shuddered as she refilled the glass.  
She stuck her tongue out.  
"Yuck!"

"Do you have any idea why Leon called US in particular, and to meet  
HERE?"  
Bochinski sighed at looked at his partner, definitely not an  
unattractive view since the changes they had both been through. Of course,  
Wadderson's change was more obvious than his own, which had been a constant  
reminder to his poor friend. Leon had managed to give them a few week's leave  
to come to terms with what had happened, but Wadderson hadn't contacted  
his...HER partner at all during those weeks. He didn't mind; he understood  
the change from muscular macho officer to Mega-Tokyo locker room pinup  
must've been a hell of a shock.  
She seemed to be coping though, he noticed, and hadn't requested another  
partner. The long blonde hair that had grown was tied in tight braids;  
possibly a bad idea to keep hair that long, but after that session in the gym  
he knew GRABBING those locks was a bad idea. Wadderson had jerked her head  
violently and he had went flying; her strength was unbelievable. At least she  
wore a uniform that fit her now. He mentally smiled; some criminals would  
probably beg to be arrested by his partner.  
For himself, there wasn't much to do, other than mailing his sister out  
the silverware set of his she had always admired. Bad luck; he had liked that  
set, but it had just driven him up the wall to have it in his house. His  
sense of smell had improved phenomenally, it was good that he was a bachelor  
who liked a clean apartment. But while he knew about the healing ability, the  
silver, and his sense of smell, he didn't have a clue on how to transform  
into a werewolf. The elf had said he had full control, but that was not  
necessarily a good thing if you had no idea on how to change and wanted to.  
I'll just have to stumble onto it, somehow, Bochinski mused.  
"Hey! Did you hear what I said?" Wadderson said, annoyed, braking into  
Bochinski's reverie. He shook his head to clear it.  
"Sorry, bud. Just thinking about some stuff," he apologized. "And no, I  
don't have a clue."  
"Damn."  
"So what DID you do all that time when you didn't bother calling me?" he  
asked curiously. "And what happened with your girlfriend?"  
Wadderson didn't reply immediately, which surprised her partner  
considerably as she hadn't taken being transformed into a woman very well.  
When she did, she spoke hesitantly. "Lynn couldn't believe it at first, but  
I still acted like myself and after being together for a year she knows me  
pretty well. We...talked." Wadderson looked away from her partner. "She still  
loves me, can you believe that?" She shook her head in disbelief. "Christ,  
you know what a looker she is, Bochinski, but I really never appreciated HER  
until now. Lynn's helping me cope," she turned back to look at Bochinski and  
her voice firmed as she smiled, "and I'm not quitting ADPolice either. It's  
the one thing that's stayed constant." She snorted. "Do you know how many  
people I had to shout at to keep on? I had to demonstrate that I could still  
do my job, fairly spectacularly too."  
"How many other 'offers' did you get?" Bochinski asked with a small  
grin, his partner looked at him with annoyance.  
"Frankly, I lost count." Her head turned as she spotted something  
approaching. Bochinski looked as well and saw it was Leon and Daley.  
"Finally!" Wadderson said, relieved to get off the topic they had wondered  
into.  
"Hey, you two. Sorry to call you so late," Leon said with a smile as he  
and Daley got out of the car. With a more serious tone, he asked, "How is  
everything with you guys?"  
"Dealing, sir. What did you expect?" Wadderson told him.  
"Ah, too bad we couldn't switch places," Daley sighed.  
"You would say that," Leon snorted, interrupting the blonde's response.  
"Alright, we've got weapons in the trunk so we'd better get them ready while  
we're waiting."  
Wadderson and Bochinski looked at each other in surprise, then Leon.  
"Who are we expecting, sir? And what's happening?" Bochinski asked.  
A hissing of air behind the altered pair caught everyone's attention.  
When all turned to see what had made the sound they saw a green armoured  
figure land gracefully on the ground. The ribbons attached to her helmet  
fluttered momentarily behind her before settling down. "I see you're all  
here. Great," the green Knight Saber said in a distorted, yet feminine, voice  
that sounded quite anxious.  
Leon scratched his head and gave a half-smile at his fellow officers'  
staring startlement. "I guess I should explain."  
"I'm glad I don't have a dull partner," Daley sighed.  
Leon frowned, noticing something. "I was told there'd be someone else  
with you."  
There was a heavy THUD of something landing behind them and everyone  
whirled again. And looked up in shock at the dark, metallic giant that had  
somehow arrived unseen by them. Leon recognized it despite the altered  
appearance and swallowed hard.  
"You just HAD to say that, didn't you, Leon?" a stunned Daley commented.


	5. Twisted Path 3.3

Chapter Thirty-Eight  
====================

"I still can't believe I'm doing this," Wadderson muttered as the group  
crept down a large and dark passageway.  
"Shh!" the Knight Saber hissed.  
The blonde woman gave the green hardsuit a glare, but quieted. She had  
the feeling that she had fallen into one of those weird sci-fi/action films  
she had used to watch as a kid. Here she was, a woman who used to be a man  
following a high technological combat hardsuit, and her partner beside her  
was now supposedly a werewolf. Probably the only normal person in the group  
was her boss, Inspector McNichol, who was following behind them as the  
group's rear guard. Their 'ally' was supposedly doing that somewhere, but he  
was being cautious. His partner Daley didn't count; she knew HIS reputation.  
Wadderson reassured herself by gripping the gun she had chosen from what Leon  
had brought.  
Leon knew about her strength so he had brought a GSB Cannon; where he  
had got it she didn't know and figured she didn't WANT to know. The reason  
for this was the raw firepower each shot the ultimate weapon unleashed. It  
was supposed to be a mounted weapon and each round could take out a Boomer,  
aimed properly or not; if it hit even NEAR a vital spot an android would be  
toast. No normal human could hold it up, much less carry it around.  
She held it like an unwieldy rifle.  
And that mysterious second arrival... She shivered at the memory and  
glanced around, but it wasn't anywhere to be seen in the large factory  
passageway.  
The factory had been shut down by Genom after some nutball scientist who  
had worked here had tried to blow up ADPolice headquarters. Stupid to close  
down the building, but she supposed it would've been bad press for someone in  
Genom's monolithic corporate structure so they had shut it down.  
Now it was being used to hold a Knight Saber, and by the same people who  
stole a whole bunch of Boomers weeks ago. Whoever was masterminding this was  
seriously cracked, or else holding one heck of a grudge. She had been told  
the Saber was still alive. Why? One conclusion that Leon had mentioned, and  
that the green Saber had agreed with, disturbed Wadderson.  
Bait.  
Give me a break! And of course we're going in like dumb fish about to  
swallow the hook with the worm on it.  
She spotted movement ahead, and stopped. Everyone else saw it too.  
Well, whomever these guys are, Wadderson thought as she gripped her  
mammoth weapon tighter, these fishies have some humungous teeth. They crept  
out into a large production room.  
Then the lights came on.

The scene was shown on a viewscreen deeper in the factory.  
"Looks like someone showed up after all."  
"Waste of effort if you ask me."  
"True. But humans can be so sentimental."  
"Hmm. You may have a point."  
"YOU GODDAMN MACHINES! WHEN I GET OUT OF THESE I'LL RIP YOUR FUCKING  
HEADS OFF!!" Priss screamed at her two Boomer captors, enraged. She was still  
in her hardsuit, but after her ill-fated battle it served better as a  
straightjacket than armour. The emergency eject was disabled so she couldn't  
get out. Strapped to a Boomer holding slab, she was helpless to anything but  
talk or watch. Her smashed helmet visor was pushed up to enable her to see  
what was happening to her rescuers in the factory.  
She recognized Linna in her hardsuit, but what were Leon, Daley, and  
those two other ADPolice officers doing with her? Her unwelcome 'companions'  
had told her upon waking up that Nene and Sylia had been captured too, but  
were not in the factory. She'd demanded why and the answer had given her  
chills.  
Lures. That's what they all were being used as. Sylia and Nene to draw  
out the Crystal Knight, and herself for everyone else. But she had gotten the  
impression she was being used more for the case if Darlene came to help.  
Whomever had caught her knew the red-head had some strange abilities and  
wanted the mage busy. IF she survived a planned attack that should have  
occurred at Hot Legs hours ago. Priss had turned cold at that information,  
but shrugged it off; she knew Darlene could handle herself quite well.  
I wonder what they would think if they found out Darlene and the Crystal  
Knight were the same person? she thought sardonically.  
Suddenly, her rescuers were shown to be under attack on the screen.  
Priss cursed her inability to move and tried not to dwell on the other thing  
her captors had told her.  
"BASTARDS!!" she screamed, and the androids ignored her.  
If her friends succeeded in getting far enough into the factory...  
...the Boomers would kill her.

Another beam went over Leon's head and he grimaced at the closeness of  
the near-miss. Things were not going well at all; he and Daley had gotten  
separated from his people and the Saber when they had all dived for cover  
during the initial ambush. Leon had seen a fleeting glimpse of them hurriedly  
retreating into another passage with several Boomers in hot pursuit; one of  
whom had been subsequently blown out of same passage with the accompanying  
roar of Wadderson's newest toy. He himself had been too pressed to find cover  
to smile.  
"And here I felt mildly disappointed that I missed the action you saw  
earlier tonight," Daley commented wryly, wincing as a burst of fire shot over  
the their cover.  
"Be careful what you wish for."  
"Ain't that the truth." Daley took a quick peek over the steel test  
plates that served as their protection. And ducked back down before another  
volley punched holes through his head. "These guys must be programmed to keep  
us from advancing past a certain point, otherwise we'd be dead already."  
"How many you figure?" Leon asked as he checked his gun, then the larger  
Boomer-Killer he had brought, much smaller then the weapon he had given  
Wadderson, but at least he could carry this. Daley carried one as well.  
"About five, maybe one or two more. Hard to tell."  
Leon sighed, he hoped the others were dealing better than they were.  
Suddenly, there was silence. The two ADPolice officers looked at each  
other with trepidation; something was up. Cautiously peering over their  
protection, they found that the Boomers had emerged from cover and were  
arrogantly advancing on the weaker humans' position.  
"Damn," Leon cursed quietly. "Guess they figured they'd had enough fun."  
"Then we're not going to die laughing; what a relief," Daley said with  
gallows humor. Despite the situation, Leon cracked a grin and got ready for  
the onslaught, short as it would be.  
***CHA-TOOM!!***  
At the booming sound, a glowing projectile flew over the detectives'  
heads and impacted directly onto a Boomer's chest. There was a split-second  
stunned pause, then the Boomer that was hit exploded spectacularly, showering  
everything with fragments of itself. Leon and Daley protected themselves from  
the shrapnel as they turned to see where the powerful shot had come from.  
They recognized it as the Knight Saber's ally, but Leon still experienced a  
pang of dread.  
The upgraded D.D. Battlemover Mark II had arrived.  
The overall design was still relatively intact, Twister had only tried  
to improve the machine for it had originally been a prototype and still had  
some flaws; in the psionist's mind the neutron bomb had definitely been one.  
(He still wondered just WHY the designers had done that, but oh well) The  
most obvious change was the 'hips' of the D.D. which were wider now and  
allowed for a smoother walk and/or run. The armour and most parts were  
enhanced by molecular re-alignment by an application of Twister's  
telekinesis, this allowed for greater strength and speed. It was painted a  
deep blue, a contrast to the previous reddish hue it had originally been.  
Oddly, there were several crystalline diamond shapes placed in certain areas  
on the armour. Their function was unknown to the officers, but the diamonds  
served as power collectors for the few magical features Twister had  
incorporated into the war machine.  
As for weapons...  
The missiles and mini-cannon were gone; Twister had just altered the war  
machine as something to occupy his time and test the technical knowledge he  
had gained. A weapons system that would've required making physical bullets  
and missiles had been considered pointless, as well as a waste of time.  
Instead, two large cylinders with openings on the forward ends were mounted  
on the D.D.'s shoulders instead of the machine guns. These were weapons that  
shot intense excited particle 'balls' as a substitute for missiles, and were  
aimable to a limited degree. They were powerful and needed a lot of energy,  
but the big D.D. could handle it. For more firepower and flexible aiming,  
single laser cannons were placed on each arm. The weapons he made for the  
large machine of destruction had given Twister ideas for his current suit  
after his old one was destroyed.  
But the main problem had been the D.D.'s main battle computer, the J-1,  
which had overridden Sylvie's control in its last fight. Not wanting a hybrid  
HAL9000/Terminator in control, Twister did a real number on the re-  
programming of the machine; he was a programmer, and having combat computers  
go out of control on the user was not a Good Thing to his way of thinking.  
With things like Microsoft Windows, fine, it only crashed your system, not  
you. It took some time, despite his acquired knowledge of AI systems during  
his stay in Mega-Tokyo; the combat skills were jumbled in with the decision-  
making processes and keeping the former intact while changing the latter  
hadn't been easy. 

Driving the altered battlemover, Sylvie had quickly found out the  
differences, and had experienced shaking relief at the changes when Twister  
had told her about them. The interface now had HER in full control, as it  
should have been. She had been late coming to the battle for she had lagged  
behind to make sure there would not be an attack from behind. Also, her  
improved scanners were helping the much more mobile Linna find Priss, but she  
had to reveal herself to save Leon and Daley. The D.D. II was performing  
wonderfully.  
+Computer, fully charge PBCs. How many more hostiles are there?+ she  
thought, and on a screen in front of her she found targeting vectors for each  
Boomer. Who had not been idle with the termination of one of their fellows,  
they had aimed at the formidable-looking D.D. seconds after the explosion.  
Surprisingly, Sylvie smiled.  
Crackling energy in the form of two Boomer particle beams from mouth  
cannons, a heat wave from another, and machine gun fire from the rest rushed  
towards the powerful Battlemover. And passed right through it, without a  
scratch. The Boomers, and the two momentarily forgotten ADPolice officers,  
gaped at what had happened.  
Sylvie didn't let them recover, picking the two androids that had fired  
the mouth cannon, she mentally ordered, +Fire!+ Two white balls of energy  
were shot out of her shoulder-mounted weapons and hit their targets,  
destroying two more of her attackers. With her less-powerful lasers, she  
focused both on the closest Boomer and punched smoking holes in head and  
middle torso. Linked to the combat computer as she was, and in full control,  
she commanded the D.D. with deadly efficiency. It frightened her a little,  
but she knew it was mostly the altered J-1 that killed so well, not her. The  
alterations made direct control possible, and only if she was unconscious  
would the D.D. fully take over. Even then, it had a modified 'idea' of what  
an enemy was, which did not include humans. Twister had been very sure about  
that.  
She ordered the D.D. to rush the Boomers and the war machine complied,  
breaking into a smooth gait that ate up the distance between her and the 55-  
Cs. They continued to fire at her, but that was futile. How were they to know  
that the D.D. they were shooting at wasn't her, but rather her displaced  
image? It was one of the few things of magic that Darlene had put on the  
machine to make it harder to hit; the purpose of the diamond embedded onto  
the outside of the D.D. The computer had offered it to her as a tactical  
selection. Surprised, she had selected it, and the image displacement was  
working beautifully.  
One of the Boomers was facing another way entirely when she grabbed its  
head with a large metal hand and, after picking the startled android off the  
ground, squeezed. It frantically tried tearing off the crushing force, but  
lost the race and the hand closed all the way. Boomer armour and fluids oozed  
out from the victorious D.D.'s fingers.  
The J-1 signalled a warning and, before Sylvie could react, the D.D.  
jumped away from a particle burst. Staying in motion, Sylvie was fervently  
thankful Twister had left some control for the J-1 when it came to defense.  
The remaining 55-Cs had figured out her displacement trick when she had  
physically attacked the Boomer. Too little, too late, she thought grimly,  
seeing that only three Boomers remained. Even with them aware of it, it took  
little extra time destroying them. The modified D.D. was an unfamiliar  
opponent and even before Twister's modifications it had been a powerful  
machine.  
Sylvie hoped Linna was having as easy a time as she watched the two  
detectives uncertainly rise from their cover on her screens.

"DIE, YOU STINKING BOOMERS!!!" Wadderson yelled, blasting away with her  
mammoth cannon at the pursuing killer machines coming down the passageway.  
Linna didn't dare try fighting them head-on right now; the blonde woman  
was blowing large holes in Boomers and walls alike, aim being impossible for  
the inexperienced user of the weapon. At least it was keeping them safe while  
the Saber collected her thoughts. "Sylvie? Have you found Priss yet?" she  
called on their personal encrypted radio link.  
"Linna!" Sylvie's relieved voice came back. She had started to become  
worried but her friend's call had alleviated some of it. Another of the  
D.D.'s mystical additions was a kind of probe which Sylvie had sent into the  
factory in search of Priss. And with success. "Yes, I have, but I can't get  
the D.D. farther into the factory. You'll have to get her yourself and  
there's two Boomers guarding her."  
"They won't be a problem," Linna assured her. "What are the  
coordinates?" Sylvie relayed them to her and the green Saber signalled her  
thanks. Unfortunately, the weapon holding off the Boomers finally ran out of  
ammo at that time.  
"Shit!" Wadderson swore, seeing the Boomers realize that the weapon was  
useless now and beginning to advance.  
"Not a good time to hang around here," Bochinski called out as he got up  
and started heading further down the hallway. "Come on!"  
"No, wait!" Linna cried out, too late, as she saw shadows moving in the  
darkness where he was headed.  
The officer turned at her cry just as one of the hidden Boomers started  
firing. Blood sprayed out in a stream as he was hit many, many times at close  
range. His chest virtually exploded as the bullets imparted some of their  
energy and kept him turning until he fell to the ground in a bloody heap.  
Three Boomers came out of the darkness and stepped over the body, ignoring it  
completely.  
"Bochinski!" his partner screamed in horror, Linna felt sick over the  
pointless death. 

"That's the first one," one of Priss' jailers affirmed. The monitor kept  
watch over the party in the passage as they were closer to their location  
than the pinned-down Leon and Daley.  
"I was beginning to wonder when it would happen," the second commented.  
"That weapon hindered things a little. The ADPolicewoman must be  
stronger than she looks. Think she's a 33-S?"  
"Maybe, she looks the type. I doubt it though."  
"True, ADPolice would have found out if she was. Pity. She'll die slowly  
now, the Boomers are programmed to do that to females. For our guest's  
enjoyment, I suppose."  
"CUT THE FUCKING COMMENTARY, YOU TIN CANS!!" Priss shouted.

"Get out of here," Wadderson muttered quietly to the armoured woman who  
was standing back-to-back with her. The Boomers began advancing from either  
side.  
"What?!" Linna responded incredulously. "I can't..."  
"You're the one who stands the better chance at getting away," the  
blonde woman's voice turned ugly, "and I have a score to settle with these  
bastards."  
"I..." Linna didn't like it, but the woman was right. "I'm sorry."  
"Go!" Wadderson shouted, and ran at the two Boomers who were coming from  
the direction they had entered the hallway from. She came faster than  
expected and surprised them by actually punching one hard enough to send it  
flying.  
The green Saber took advantage of the unexpected development and ran  
towards the three on the other side, gathered herself, and leaped over the  
trio. She touched down behind them and ran without a backwards glance, not  
wanting to see that would happen to the woman she had left behind. She didn't  
look at the fallen officer and vanished into the shadows, her helmet hid her  
tears.  
If she had, she would have seen the body move.

The trio of Boomers didn't pursue her; they knew what would happen when  
she found her fellow Saber. But the other woman...  
Incredibly, she was actually holding her own against the two Boomers,  
who were wondering how this human was strong enough to battle them physically  
without aid. But when the other Boomers joined in, the furious Wadderson was  
soon pinned down. Not without effort; the human was both angry at the Boomers  
that had killed her partner and fearful of what these machines had planned.  
"So," one of the Boomers rumbled at last, "are you a 33-S? You are  
obviously not a normal human."  
"Figure it out yourself, bastards!" Wadderson shouted.  
She regretted those words immediately when another Boomer extended an  
arm over her held form and let its armblade slide out. "We intend to.  
Slowly," the Boomer said with an evil chuckle that sent stabs of fear through  
her heart. With a quick slash, it cut through her pants on one of her held  
legs, and a little ways into the skin as a line of red immediately sprang up.  
It stung greatly and Wadderson clenched her teeth at the pain. Then the  
Boomer drove the blade into the front, fleshy upper part of her leg and  
twisted it around roughly. Blood flowed from the wound.  
This time she screamed loudly.  
A third Boomer considered her response. "Not quite like a 33-S."  
"Rip open her chest then to make sure," the first one offered.  
"If she IS human, that's too quick," the fourth objected.  
"Better if you take it slow," the fifth agreed.  
Wadderson moaned as the second Boomer slowly moved the blade around, and  
screamed again when it jerked the blade out. It paused momentarily, deciding  
where to strike next with its bloody blade.  
"Let...my...partner...go!!" growled an angry voice. Quickly, the Boomers  
looked for the owner, and drew back a bit in mechanical disbelief. Wadderson  
lifted her head up despite the pain in her leg.  
And stared.  
Standing in the shredded and bloody remains of his uniform, and looking  
mighty pissed off, was the presumedly dead Bochinski. The holes in the front  
of his shirt showed his blood-covered, but intact, skin. He glared at the  
Boomers holding his partner down.  
The androids registered this fact with much difficulty. Humans, or even  
Boomers for that matter, do NOT just stand up without out a scratch after  
being mortally wounded a few minutes earlier. Two stood up from the amazed  
Wadderson and faced the ADPoliceman. "Human, however you survived, you won't  
do so again," one declared.  
Bochinski's response was a snarl, and it didn't sound remotely human as  
his eyes, once blue, turned yellow. Before the astounded Boomers' eyes he  
started to change. His face, taut with the strain, began to sprout fur. This  
was occurring all over his body from what could be seen on the visible  
portions of his skin. Nails grew on fingers attached to what became a  
powerful mixture of paws and hands. The legs changed, becoming strong hind  
legs that could stand upright or on all fours with equal ease, his shoes were  
destroyed by expanding and clawed feet. The man's face stretched forwards,  
mouth becoming a muzzle with razor-sharp teeth and sporting a keen black  
nose. The ears moved position and became a wolf's ears higher on the  
transformed officer's head. During the change, Bochinski's form had become  
taller and showed lean, vigorous muscles on his new nine-foot height. The  
change was now complete, lupin eyes glowing yellow in the darkness.  
The fully transformed werewolf howled.  
Knowing a threat when they saw one, both Boomers immediately attacked by  
opening both their chests and firing their heat weapons. With a supernatural  
predator's speed, the wolfman sprang away from the blast of heat and headed  
for his prey. The first Boomer he attacked had little time to respond to the  
howling fury upon it. Bochinski gripped both of its blue arms and yanked with  
savage force, ripping the limbs free with a spray of nutrient fluids and  
tossed them away. The second Boomer leapt in and connected hard on the  
muscled stomach with a blue fist. It made the officer stagger backwards, but  
not without making a swipe of his claws, ripping apart the midsection of his  
foe.  
Bochinski steadied himself and readied for another attack, but then a  
blue beam slashed hungrily for the wolfman and cut him in two. With a gurgle,  
the two separate sections of the officer fell to the ground. One of the  
Boomers holding the female down had decided to help its fellows with its  
mouth cannon.  
"NO!!" Wadderson shouted, and began struggling. A Boomer punched her on  
the side of the head to stop her squirming, staggering her. Picking her up,  
the Boomers twisted both her arms so she couldn't escape and cruelly made her  
painfully hobble to the fallen werewolf. The Boomer with the torn front  
wasn't getting off the ground and the one without its arms was having a hard  
time as well. The three holding her examined the corpse cautiously. But for  
some reason Wadderson had quieted, for she strongly suspected something now  
that the shock had lessened.  
"Bio-genetics experiment?" one wondered.  
"Is that right, human?" another Boomer asked Wadderson roughly, applying  
pressure on her arms.  
"Why don't....you ask him...." she painfully gritted out, "yourself?!!"  
"What?!"  
The Boomers hadn't noticed the sluggish movements of the two halves of  
the body until it was too late. Then the two pieces, like a pair of magnets,  
jerked together; flesh, bone, and muscle reattaching both halves in a frenzy.  
A howl filled the air again as the resurrected Bochinski leapt up and tore  
the head off the Boomer holding his partner, yanking her roughly out of the  
way when its arms spasmed.  
Once she was out of the danger zone... things got REAL ugly.  
By the time Wadderson got up from where she had fallen and limped over  
to her partner, Bochinski was covered with Boomer fluids and standing amid a  
pile of shredded Boomer parts ready for the scrap heap. "You okay, partner?"  
she asked cautiously.  
Eyes dimmer now that the fighting was done, Bochinski regarded his  
friend and partner. "You know, I could really go for a Milk-Bone now," he  
said with a deeper voice than normal, a little breathlessly. He winced a  
little when she angrily punched him.  
"Damn it, Bochinski! I was worried about you! I thought you were dead!  
Twice! And then you make jokes about the whole damn thing!" She would have  
continued but her wounded leg made her stumble. The half-man half-wolf caught  
her before she fell.  
"Well, there's another joke." Wadderson looked up at him, face scrunched  
up in pain, but with the question in her eyes. "I'm... uh... not sure how to  
change back."  
After incredulously staring at him for a few long seconds, the blonde  
woman found that funny. She started laughing and crying at the same time,  
releasing the stress she had been under.  
Bochinski sighed, recognizing the reasons behind his partner's laughter  
and the need for it. Then he wrinkled his muzzle in distaste.  
Boomers did NOT taste good.

"It's been quiet for a long time," Daley observed, warily watching the  
big blue mech that had saved their lives and then hadn't moved an inch since.  
"Do you think we should find the others?"  
Leon sighed. "Where do you suggest we start?" he asked his red-headed  
partner, who shrugged helplessly. "Besides, I have a feeling whoever's in  
this thing has contact with that Saber." He tiredly rubbed his eyes; it had  
been a long night and he wasn't really sure if he'd be able to stay awake  
much longer after all these adrenaline rushes. "Hopefully, it'll tell us if  
we're needed."  
Inside the D.D., all of Sylvie's attention was on a monitor, praying  
Linna would hurry. The remote unit only transmitted visual and not sound, but  
from what she was saw on the screen things for Priss were turning critical.  
One of the Boomers was watching a monitor that had Linna's hardsuited figure  
displayed, the other Boomer was standing in front of Priss and was  
occasionally pointing one of its arms at the brown-haired woman's head; from  
Priss' tight expression, that was not a good thing.  
My God, Sylvie realized, stunned. I think they're going to kill Priss  
just before Linna gets there! Deliberately! She immediately flicked a switch,  
opening communications with the green Saber. "Linna, stop!!" she shouted  
frantically.  
"What?!" came her friend's puzzled response. "Okay, but why? What's  
wrong?"  
"They know you're coming, and I think they plan on killing Priss just  
before you make it there," she explained quickly and got stunned silence for  
a long moment.  
"What can we do then??" Linna said, frustrated and afraid.  
"I don't know! Maybe....what?" Sylvie stared at what had come up on one  
of her screens. It showed:

-RECOMMENDED COURSE OF ACTION: HOMLAS-

"Sylvie? What is it?"  
The sexaroid didn't respond, her thoughts racing. The J-1 was still  
linked to her and knew that she needed help. Sylvie didn't know what the  
battle computer meant, but whatever the abbreviation was, the J-1 wouldn't  
have recommended the unknown option on the screen if it didn't think it would  
work.  
Cautiously, she looked at the two Boomers with Priss, and thought,  
+Target Boomers.+  
+Targets acquired. Initiate recommended course of action?+  
+Will this injure anyone else?+ she thought, hope building.  
+Negative. Initiate recommended course of action?+  
"Do I have a choice?" Sylvie growled, then swallowed nervously. +Yes.+  
+Acknowledged.+ The D.D. started humming as the J-1 started whatever  
action it was about to apply. +Power up sequence: started. Computing energy  
requirements.+  
Sylvie was startled when the D.D. raised its arms into a forward firing  
position and turned to face an empty passageway. Looking at the equipment  
indicators, she saw with no little puzzlement that the lasers were beginning  
to power up with no indication of firing anytime soon. Alarmed, she noticed  
that the normal level of energy the lasers used had just been exceeded and  
quickly approaching maximum safety limits. What was the J-1 planning to do??  
That was a thought shared by Leon and Daley as they wondered at the  
position the Battlemover had placed itself in.  
"NOW what is it doing?" Leon said.  
"I don't know," Daley commented as his eyes widened, "but I think we'd  
better get some distance between us and it. Now." He started backing away  
from the mech.  
"What?" Leon said, puzzled by his partner's comments, then noticed what  
had precipitated the advice and started backing away himself. For the  
crystals embedded into the D.D. had begun to glow, and trails of energy were  
streaming from all of the crystals to the forearms of the D.D. where the  
lasers were mounted.  
Inside the D.D., the officers' panic was doubly echoed by Sylvie. The  
lasers had passed well beyond their maximum operating levels by a good margin  
and now the indicators were no longer able to measure the amount of energy  
the lasers were being fed. The lasers should have blown up by now! Sylvie  
wondered nervously, unwilling to stop the J-1's plan at this point. She saw  
that Priss wasn't dead yet and heard that Linna was frantically trying to  
contact her, but all her attention was focused on the D.D.'s arms. They were  
glowing blue with some kind of energy for some mysterious reason. Which was  
likely the reason the lasers weren't exploding, she realized, but for how  
long?  
+Energy levels at required parameters for target elimination. Beginning  
firing sequence.+  
Sylvie was about to reply, but stopped when she saw what appeared on her  
monitor, and her eyes widened in shock. It read:

=======================  
= HOMING LASER FIRING =  
=======================

"That's ridiculous! It can't..." Sylvie incredulously started to say,  
but it was now too late to do anything. The D.D. diverted almost all its  
power to the lasers, and even the forces preventing the overtaxed weapons  
from blowing up were strained. The crystals on the D.D.'s surface shattered,  
releasing the rest of their force into the operation by thin, fiery blue  
lines of energy that wrapped around the forearms. Finally, with an explosion  
that sent the D.D. rocking violently backwards, the lasers vomited two  
blinding beams of crimson light, surrounded by swirls of blue energy and  
roared down the passageway the D.D. had been facing. Sylvie was slammed  
painfully into her seat straps by the blast, generating a startled cry from  
the sexaroid.  
Faster than the eye could track, the twin beams of destruction sliced  
down the hallway. Blue energy mixed with crimson light, becoming a hybrid  
purple lance that TURNED at a junction. Then they went up a stairway, burned  
through a sealed door, crossed a spacious room, burned through the opposite  
door, and continued down another hallway. Finally, the beams stopped and  
lanced straight down through the floor in two different places.  
They hit the Boomers guarding Priss on the top of the head, and  
continued down into the Boomers' bodies until exiting where their 'groins'  
were. The vaporized portions of the androids, having become plasma, burst  
outwards and destroyed the rest of the machines. A shocked Priss was not  
injured by the minor explosions of her captors' destruction.  
From firing to the targets took less time than it took to blink.

"Uhhh..." Sylvie groaned, shaking her head groggily. The D.D. was on its  
back and from what she could see the arms were smoking, discharges of  
electricity sparking around the damaged areas. Nevertheless, the sexaroid  
tried getting her machine on its feet.  
"Sylvie! For God's sake tell me what you did!!" Linna's voice demanded,  
registering on the brown-haired woman's consciousness at last.  
"I think...you can get Priss now," the sexaroid numbly said, staring at  
the screen showing the singer and the smoking remains of what was left of the  
Boomers.  
"What did you do??"  
"I'm not sure; you'll have to ask Darlene that. Just get Priss and let's  
get out of here." And after toggling off the communicator, to herself she  
muttered, "Next time, I will ask that friend of mine everything she did to  
this thing. I really should throttle her for not telling me about this." She  
sighed as the D.D. finally got on its legs and checked the damage. Power  
levels were low, but the only real abuse was on the arms where the lasers,  
now hardware history, had been; the arms were about 20% operational.  
All in all, things could've been worse, she thought as she saw Linna  
arrive at Priss' room and free the relieved singer.

That was approximately what Leon was thinking when he saw the forms of  
Wadderson, and...was THAT Bochinski??? returning. "Is that YOU,  
Bochinski?!?!" Daley, standing beside him, was wide-eyed as well. They both  
knew about what had happened to the ADPoliceman, but the actual sight of his  
lupin other self was daunting.  
"Yes, sir!" the werewolf growled in good humor, saluting. "We ran into  
trouble with some Boomers until I figured out how to change into my werewolf  
form." His tongue hung in a wolfish grin.  
"How were the Boomers then?"  
The were grimaced. "Awful; next time I bring mouthwash." His blond  
partner punched him hard in the diaphragm, turning the fiercesome image  
Bochinski was projecting into a hilarious one as he doubled over, gasping for  
breath.  
"He didn't change back because the idiot hasn't figured THAT part out  
yet," Wadderson told her grinning superiors with an exasperated air. "They  
couldn't do anything to him, sirs. No silver."  
"Hurt like hell though," the werewolf sighed, absently rubbing his  
middle.  
"Hmm," Leon mused, looking up at his furred subordinate and thinking of  
all the advantages that must have with Boomers. "You'd better figure out how  
to change back quickly; we don't have uniforms this size," he joked, then he  
saw Wadderson's bloody leg and became concerned. "Are YOU all right,  
Wadderson?" The blonde woman gingerly touched her leg and winced.  
"I guess this does need looking at."  
"We'd better take you to a hospital after the Sabers get here," Leon  
said.  
"Sir, shouldn't we bring them in?" the injured woman asked him.  
"No. I don't think we could anyways." Leon tiredly shook his head.  
"Frankly, I just want to go to bed right now, YOU need medical help, and your  
partner needs to change back or he'll be in big trouble. Let's just wait for  
five more minutes and then go." The rest sighed, but complied.  
It was four and a half minutes before the green Saber, carrying the  
rescued blue Saber, came back and said that they were done here.

Chapter Thirty-Nine  
===================

Sylia regained consciousness quietly, not opening her eyes. Her body  
felt like it was upright, arms stretched out to either side and legs pointed  
downwards. She was still in her hardsuit, minus her helmet, but by minutely  
moving her limbs found that it was either immobilized or nonfunctional.  
Sadly, she was noticed.  
"Ah. I see you have finally awakened, Sylia. Good."  
That voice! Sylia thought, shocked, and immediately opened her eyes to  
see a familiar figure standing and smiling in front of her. "Largo," she  
acknowledged him neutrally. "So you were not fully destroyed."  
The silver-haired man smiled mockingly and shook his head. "Sylia,  
Sylia, Sylia... How can mortals like yourself truly kill a god?"  
The corners of her lips twitched upwards. "By deleting all his backups?"  
Largo angrily narrowed his eyes. Sylia finally looked around and wondered  
what was going on.  
Her helmet was positioned near her feet at the base of the metal cross  
she was attached to. Crucified? she sighed mentally in disgust at the  
melodrama. She saw Nene, still unconscious, in a similar position to her own  
on another cross beside her. The crosses were on a raised platform on one end  
of a large room. There was a huge metal door on her right. Two other figures  
working behind a bank of machines by the left wall caught her attention for  
she recognized both. One was Dr. Miriam, the mad scientist who had attacked  
ADPolice HQ with his Boomers but had escaped police hands;she had wondered  
where he had gone. The other was the beautiful woman who had identified  
herself as 'Yanda' before Nene and Sylia had been knocked unconscious.  
Largo noticed her interest. "My vassals," he said, waving at the busy  
duo. "The man was quite useful once he realized the beauty of my grand  
design."  
"And the woman?"  
"She was originally an experiment; I had little resources to start with  
so it was time to activate her." Largo smiled thinly. "Yanda is...most  
efficient, and she recruited the good doctor for me."  
"Where are my other friends, Largo? What are you up to?" Sylia demanded.  
Largo laughed in true amusement.  
"Priss, she who loathes feeling helpless, has become the bait for an  
amusing diversion. Your other...friend I let go to deliver a message for me."  
"Diversion? Message?"  
"All part of the game. You see....I have a score to settle with the one  
who destroyed my last incarnation." He turned to her and smiled a cruel smile  
that did not reach his eyes.  
"With the Crystal Knight."

Twister's armoured form became visible when he turned off the cloaking  
option in his suit. He stood in front of the gate to what appeared to be some  
kind of old Genom testing facility for Boomers. Likely shut down when further  
Boomer development was banned, at least for the public's benefit. Secret ones  
likely existed elsewhere; that was like Genom.  
The first Boomers were even more unstable than the modern ones of today,  
Twister thought, which means the place is probably heavily armoured. His  
musing was disrupted when the gate opened with a grating sound.  
"Great. Upgraded haunted house. Just perfect," he sighed. Despite his  
misgivings, he entered the building. There wasn't much choice until he found  
out more about the place. Speaking of which...  
Normally Twister wouldn't scan with his telekinesis over a wide area if  
he could help it, but anything he found would be useful.  
He started probing.

Dr. Miriam grinned evilly. "I'm getting a reading!" he crowed.  
"He's being cautious, but we will get more out of what he does than he,"  
Yanda commented by his side.  
Sylia overheard this and was puzzled by their remarks.  
Largo smiled up at her. "Our guest has arrived, and the trap is  
prepared. Now the play begins!"  
"You're mad," Sylia said. Largo raised an eyebrow.  
"Wait and see, my dear Sylia. Wait and see."

What the heck?!?  
There were LARGE sections of the building he could not 'see' with his  
telekinesis. Somehow, something was interfering with his scans. It didn't  
feel like much, but it was just enough to 'blind' him like a cloth over the  
eyes. Largo had done his homework this time, and he obviously knew that the  
Crystal Knight was psionic. But where did he get the technology?  
Another door opened ahead of him and he had to move on.

Miriam frowned in annoyance. "He's stopped."  
"Likely discovered the 'blind spots' we've created. They won't interfere  
with his abilities much; he just can't sense anything beyond a few feet."  
"I haven't had nearly enough time to isolate what we need," Miriam  
complained.  
"You'll get plenty of opportunity in a few more minutes."  
Dr. Miriam furrowed his brow. "What?"  
"You haven't heard this part of what's planned." Yanda smiled at him.  
"It's a surprise."  
Miriam frowned, but turned back to his instruments. If the woman wanted  
to play games that was fine with him, but she'd better be right.

Twister was finally led into a spacious staging area that had been used  
to pit Boomer against Boomer in order to test their effectiveness. The way in  
had been through a huge and thickly armoured door, slamming shut behind him.  
Each wall had one of the immense doors, but it was the far wall that caught  
his attention. Beyond the far wall was where one of the 'dead' zones was, so  
did the walls on either side, but there was a large vid-screen newly  
installed high on that wall. He walked towards it, and when he reached the  
middle of the testing area the screen flashed into life, displaying the  
architect of all this.  
Largo.  
The incarnation of Brian Mason smiled. "Welcome, Crystal Knight. It's a  
pleasure to see you again, despite our last encounter."  
"Too bad it wasn't that. Last, I mean."  
"Oh no," Largo disagreed. "I planned too far ahead for that."  
"That's obvious. All right, Largo," Twister called out as he raised his  
voice, "if you wanted to fight me again, why did you capture the Knight  
Sabers? Let them go."  
"Oh, I do want to fight you, Crystal Knight. That is a certainty."  
Largo's smile was not something Twister was pleased to see. "I've deduced you  
have some protective feelings towards my first foes and to ensure your coming  
I brought them here." The screen split in two, one with Largo and the other  
showing Sylia and Nene hanging helplessly in their hardsuits, but without  
their helmets to make them plainly identifiable. Sylia was awake but Nene was  
still out. "But," Largo went on, "I want to test you first."  
"Test me?" Twister didn't like the sound of that. He saw Largo glance  
off-screen, likely signalling someone else unseen. A second later, he heard  
the sound of large doors opening to either side of him, and what was behind  
them....  
Boomers.  
A LOT of Boomers.  
Oh. Boy.  
He stopped counting at thirty and that was just with the 55-C's he saw.  
There were older models as well, probably from here and reactivated, but also  
BU-12 combat Boomers with their bazooka arms and dual rockets. Organic-  
looking Boomers were included as well; humans, like the way Steelfist had  
been converted, except they didn't ACT like humans, they looked Boomer to the  
core. Twister frowned; Boomers could have their memories erased, and Largo  
seemed to have done just that. They weren't remotely human any longer.  
"You call this a test?" he said, anger at what Largo had done making his  
tone icy. "The numbers are a little uneven." Largo looked mock-thoughtful.  
"Then perhaps I should provide incentive." He walked up to the helpless  
Knight Sabers and the dual screen became one again. "Defeat my Boomers, get  
though the door in front of you, and then you can fight me to save your  
friends." Nene choose that moment to groggily regain consciousness, she  
became wide awake when she saw Largo. "Ah, my other caged bird has finally  
awakened," he commented with a cruel smile.  
"S-Sylia, what's going on?" the hacker nervously whispered.  
"Stay calm, Nene, everything will be all right," Sylia said calmly.  
"Will they?" Largo replied, and without any warning whatsoever, lifted  
his hand towards the helpless red-head. Nene had just enough time to widen  
her eyes before a wave of force left his hand....  
...and punched a hole through her forehead.  
"NENE!!" Sylia screamed in disbelief and horror as her friend's head  
jerked backwards, then slowly rolled forward, lifeless.  
Unconcerned with her reaction, Largo turned back to address the Crystal  
Knight, who had seen it all. "As you see, you had best hurry before I tire of  
Sylia. Shall we begin?"  
Twister was absolutely silent, his helmet fixed on the image of Nene.  
The Boomers had surrounded him and were waiting for their master's command,  
but Crystal Knight appeared to care less about them now.  
Largo peered from at the Knight from the screen. "Oh? Did you like that  
one? That's a disappointment; I would have chosen Sylia instead if I had  
known. Oh, well. That's life."  
Twister turned from looking at the lifeless Nene, to Largo. The black  
crystal visor on the Knight's helmet slowly revealed two glowing blue orbs  
for eyes. And the Knight finally spoke.  
"Largo..."  
The power-mad, silver haired android had to pause when he heard the  
Knight say his name, so did Miriam and Yanda, and even Sylia lifted her  
impassive face as she tried to mentally compose herself. The voice that had  
spoken was distorted as usual, but this time there was ... SOMETHING behind  
it that suggested a coldness beyond even what an emotionless computer was  
capable of, and far more deadly. Even in her private grief, Sylia knew Largo  
had crossed a line that he probably shouldn't have. She knew fairly well what  
Twister could do when angered, and she wasn't sure what she should feel about  
now considering what had provoked such a reaction. The Crystal Knight spoke  
again in that same unnerving manner.  
"You will die." It was a statement of a fact that WOULD happen.  
Largo wasted no more words. "Begin!" he ordered his Boomers.  
One 55-C started the attack first and leaped straight for the  
crystalline figure. The armour made no move to avoid the devastating punch  
the Boomer was about to unleash.  
And the android stopped in mid-air a few feet in front of its target.  
The other Boomers hesitated for a moment while the Boomer found it  
couldn't move, and the Knight was still as immobile as a statue. Therefore,  
the Boomer opened its mouth to reveal the hidden particle cannon and...never  
got the chance to fire. For the Knight's glowing eyes had flared and the  
Boomer was flung helplessly towards the large vid-screen. It began to melt  
from the sheer telekinetic force Twister had flung at the android, its  
molecules given enough energy to flow freely. By the time it impacted on the  
screen, it was little more than a flaming fireball. The monitor shattered and  
exploded along with the hapless Boomer that had been decimated by the Knight.

Yanda saw the destruction of the Boomer and screen and turned to Dr.  
Miriam, who was gaping at the sight. "I suggest you pay attention to your  
instruments so we can safely proceed with the plan," she advised.  
He stared at her for a moment, then turned to his panel and frantically  
continued the task he was striving to accomplish.  
And from what he had seen, he had better succeed damn fast.

It was total war in the Boomer testing set.  
Seeing the demise of the first Boomer, the others attacked the  
crystalline armoured form en masse, and thus did the carnage began for  
Twister blurred into action. He was in constant motion, for with all the  
firepower being aimed at him to stand still would have been suicide. All the  
while his eyes glowed a cold blue.  
The first wave met glowing diamond swords created from the carbon in the  
air, and the preternaturally sharp blades cut deep with psi-enhanced strength  
backing their deadly arcs. And the machines found they couldn't swarm him; he  
just jumped up out of the onrush and came back down before the others could  
fire on him, carving more lessons into Boomer armour. When the Boomers drew  
back, he stood unharmed and surrounded by the corpses of twelve or so  
androids.  
Then the cybernetic AI's played smarter, seeing pure brute force would  
not work; Boomers could be persistent in the attack, but even they knew  
something needed to be changed when they were losing this badly. So they  
spread out and began firing from a distance, moving constantly and staying  
away from those swords.  
They needn't have worried about that; Twister knew that without massed  
targets the swords weren't worth draining energy from himself. Besides, he  
needed his hands free to help dodge the barrage of incoming fire from the  
masses of Boomers. Bullets were an annoyance, the occasional heat blast was  
helpfully absorbed into his armour, but the shells from the BU-12's and the  
particle beams licking close to where he had been split seconds before were  
the real threats. There were simply too many Boomers to dodge forever, and  
indeed, a bazooka blast finally caught him, jarring and slowing him enough to  
get hit in the foot with a particle blast. The armour was tough, and had a  
minor force field to add to its durability, but the beam was strong enough to  
shatter the front part with a sound of breaking ice and cracking the area  
where the heel was. Shards bit into the reddened foot revealed and blood  
flowed.  
Normally, Twister would have flinched, and that would have been fatal at  
this time. But with icy rage he ignored the pain, sparing enough  
concentration on ejecting the diamond shards from his foot, even though they  
were slowly becoming carbon dust. He cooly decided it was time to strike  
back.  
On his next leap, wary of the damaged but slowly regenerating boot, he  
spun and began his offensive. "Double C-Sphere," he ordered. His armour  
reacted to the command and in each cupped hand shining orbs appeared. Which  
he tossed with calculated accuracy at his inhuman opponents, damaging a  
combat Boomer with one and tossing back two converted humans with the other.  
Twister bounded off a partially destroyed wall of one of the mock-up  
buildings, directly towards a pair of Boomers still trying to machine gun  
him. Hands pointed at the heads of the cyberdroids, he attacked again,  
mentally commanding his suit this time. On each hand, five red beams of light  
were emitted from the fingers and were concentrated into a single intense  
beam of coherent light. The ruby shafts lanced through the Boomers' heads  
after a half-second of burning armour, insulation, and digital brain matter.  
He stopped firing immediately when they punched through; the lasers drained  
the armour a considerable degree.  
Then he was slammed to the floor by a force from above. Three Boomers  
had hidden on the roofs of the buildings and had leaped on him while he was  
focused on lasering the now-destroyed Boomers. His precedence always warned  
him in life-threatening instances, but these had not attacked with lethal  
force. Two gripped his arms in arm locks, making sure they were immobile and  
unable to aim weapons or use swords. The one on his legs wrapped its arms  
around his limbs to prevent struggling. The other Boomers stopped firing,  
thinking he was caught, and took a step forwards.  
Foolish, he thought clinically, I don't NEED to move.  
An intense fireball, pyrokinetic in origin, exploded outwards with the  
Crystal Knight and the three startled Boomers in the center, blowing back the  
others who had started to advance.

"Impressive," Largo observed as he watched the monitor, "for a human. He  
certainly displays a great deal more skill and power when properly  
motivated," he told Sylia, smiling cruelly. The elder Stingray was not  
amused.  
"I'd destroy you myself if I could," Sylia said in a tone almost as  
chilly as Twister's had been. The heavy sorrow over Nene's death was pushed  
aside for the moment, leaving behind a burning resolution to obliterate the  
silver-haired evil fixed in her sights. "But I think the Knight will do that  
long before I get the chance. He's easily tearing through that army of  
Boomers you've gathered against him because you've enraged him to the point  
where he's fighting without moral restraint. WHY?!" she demanded.  
"My dear, he still has a formidable force left against him; it still  
remains to be seen whether or not he will succeed. And if he does..." Largo  
smiled as he turned back to the carnage unfolding on the screen, "all the  
better."  
Sylia stared at him in disbelief; was he mad??  
Over by the control panels, Yanda watched the monitor with an odd and  
unreadable expression on her face. To Miriam, she asked, "Is it done?"  
"Almost!" he replied with eagerness in his voice. "He is using his  
abilities at a low level to increase his physical attributes, but when he  
uses them to a greater degree, like that fireball, I have considerable  
progress finding the key we need. One more use of that sort and we'll be  
ready!" he crowed.  
"Excellent," she replied absently, absorbed on the display. 

Twister rushed out of the smoky crater, determined to finish this fight  
quickly so he could confront Largo. As with the lasers, he again commanded  
his armour to activate one of the two weapons he had not used yet since its  
creation. The raised portions of his armour with the openings were there for  
a reason, and a Boomer found out why when they unleashed a massive volley of  
what was best described as energy bullets, hitting it in mid-torso.  
They did no damage for a second, at least until the energy density  
building in the Boomer's armour and internal workings passed their ability to  
contain the destructive forces and imploded violently. The Boomer became a  
tightly compacted ball and swallowed a fellow Boomer's arm in the bargain. It  
was weapon developed so that if a human were to be hit by a few of the  
'bullets' then no harm would come to them as the energy dissipated rapidly in  
matter. However, past a certain point... Again, it was another energy  
intensive weapon and as a result Twister's armour started to gain weight.  
***DANGER!!!***  
Time slowed down as perceptions accelerated in response to the  
precognitive warning. Four Boomers had coordinated together were firing their  
mouth-mounted particle cannons in such a manner as to entrap the Crystal  
Knight in a cage of blue annihilation. To be closed with lethal results. The  
beams were rushing towards him and there was not enough time for a leap.  
Despite the situation, Twister still did not wish to teleport, it was an ace  
to be played only in a dire emergency when there were no other options  
available.  
And there was one for this assault.  
Matter is energy, energy is matter. Manipulate one, and you can do the  
same with the other. Focusing on the incoming beams, Twister concentrated  
intensely as they came closer... closer... come ON... closer... MOVE!!! And  
slowly, the beams began to curve.  
In normal time, one saw the blue shafts stab towards the black and  
silver figure, certainly about to strike dead on. Then they crazily angled  
away a half meter's distance from him, missing him completely and incidently  
destroying another Boomer. That was an accident, however beneficial to  
Twister, who had not aimed the beams. With all the Boomers in the area there  
had been a good chance an android would be hit.  
The effort had been very tiring, but there was no time to rest.

"That's it! I've got the frequency!" Miriam shouted triumphantly. He  
reached out to push a button on the panel, but a slim, yet strong, female  
hand stopped him. Somewhat angrily, the scientist glared at Yanda. "What...?"  
"Patience, Doctor," she chided him. "We have to wait for the right  
moment. Which is not yet. You ARE sure it will work?"  
"It worked perfectly on the other one," he replied, yanking back his  
hand and rubbing it; the woman had a strong grip. "And it will work again."  
"Very well." Turning to face Largo she called out, "It is ready."  
Largo turned from the monitor at this, and considered the news. "Good,  
then I should speed things up." He did not touch a control, but when he spoke  
his voice was echoed in the Boomer test chamber.  
"Enough delay! Finish him!"

The still-numerous Boomers in the chamber paused as they digested the  
new command. Twister, on the other hand, felt renewed wrath upon hearing the  
once dead, and soon to be dead again, man's voice.  
"Finish...or BE finished?" he stated coldly to his enemies. "This ends  
now. FROST!!!!!" he bellowed as loud as he could. And as the Boomers began to  
advance, something peculiar began to transpire. One was that the temperature  
in the spacious room started to drop for no visible reason, nothing major,  
but it steadily continued. The second was that frost WAS beginning to form on  
the Crystal Knight armour.  
As the mass of firing Boomers rushed him, Twister cut loose with his  
suit's weapons; the process had begun so he could afford to, wasting energy  
would only minorly slow it. Lasers scythed across the Boomers, melting  
armour, punctuated by exploding spheres and implosions.  
The temperature passed -10 Celsius and continued to plummet.  
Twister retreated towards the only door that hadn't opened, where Largo  
awaited no doubt. What he was about to do would be devastating and he had to  
face away from that door. His frosty armour, normally black, was starting to  
lose that light-absorbing color and was becoming a riot of multi-faceted hues  
that glittered luminously. When he moved, he sparkled.  
Temperature -40 and dropping.  
His lasers were going full time, along with his energy bullets, but it  
couldn't stop the fact that his suit was slowly becoming brighter. Now the  
frost was starting to melt from the radiant energy of the suit. Around him,  
Boomers were starting to notice the temperature drop at last; the surrounding  
area was turning white from precipitating moisture. His shattered boot had  
long regenerated from the excess energy that was quickly making the armor too  
bright to watch.  
Now!  
With a great leap, he arced high over the ground and landed right in  
front of his enemy's door, then turned to face the mass of Boomers following  
him. Placing arms and legs into an X formation, he roared, "FIRE!!!"  
Twister's second diamond-based suit was essentially a magical heat sink.  
Normally, it limited its normal passive energy storage because if lasers  
should hit it extra room was needed to absorb and store the excess energy.  
The FrostFire attack changed that in two ways: in that mode the armour  
ACTIVELY gathered heat energy, and had no limits on gathering it. The only  
way to stop it was to release ALL the armour's energy, save a little to  
sustain the armour's integrity, and throw it at the enemy.  
The armour could hold a lot of power.  
Upon his command, energy streamed from all of the armour's plates,  
gathering in a globe of writhing malestromic hunger and eager to burn all in  
its way. Still drawing life from that which had created it, the four foot  
plasma ball rocketed towards its prey, trailing tendrils of energy behind in  
its wake. The alarmed Boomers dodged out of its way, but not far enough. Not  
nearly far enough.  
A small portion of hell erupted in their midst.

The flare of light burned out the camera's optics, but what had happened  
was clear.  
"I suppose we should prepare for my guest," Largo commented in the  
stunned silence.

Twister studied the destruction he had caused. Quite a few of the  
structures in the chamber had either collapsed or been blown away. Most of  
the Boomers caught near the blast had melted into unrecognizable shapes,  
those further away had been hit so badly they had become non-functional.  
There had been one or two that had survived semi-intact, but he had dealt  
with them.  
Doing that had turned part of his arm armour into diamond dust. His  
protective suit had not escaped the strains of firing his weapon of last  
resort and was wavering between reconstitution and collapse. Turning, feeling  
parts of his brittle armour creak, and even rip or crack, he faced the door  
that stood between him and Largo. It was the same as the others he had seen  
open to the chamber; large, massive, and very, very thick. Little chance  
using his suit at the moment to open it.  
He tried his psi-senses, but there was that field blocking them again  
and it JUST protected the door. He was unsure he could just rip it open with  
TK. He tried melting a portion, but the time it took to get it just to  
cherry-red was too long. He even tried Mindfire and...metal flowed.  
What??  
Once more with Mindfire, and again metal parted like liquid mercury. In  
more normal circumstances Twister would have been very surprised, but now,  
seeing a way to get in, he merely gathered a large ball of Mindfire and threw  
it into the depression. It tunnelled through the thick door, waves of blue  
fire radiating outwards and taking away layers of armour with them. It would  
soon break through.  
Soon....  
Then Largo would die.

The glow on the door was the first indication of the Knight's arrival.  
Then the light brightened and an opening appeared in the barrier. Like  
melting wax the metal flowed open, eventually making a passageway large  
enough to stride through. And someone with glowing blue eyes did just that.  
"Ah, my armour-clad foe, welcome at last," Largo said, standing by  
Sylia's helpless form. "I hope you weren't too disappointed with your  
opponents."  
The Knight said nothing, only lifted a hand where a sharp-looking sword  
appeared, burning with a wintry blue fire that flickered along the diamond  
blade. Fortunately, his armour was in slightly better shape now so nothing  
shattered on his arm.  
"No words? Pity. I've grown to love those speeches before fights blood  
enemies seem to thrive on. However..." He snapped his fingers.  
Dr. Miriam, unnoticed by the Knight, pressed the button he had been  
waiting to push. He felt quite satisfied with the results; the Knight's blade  
was extinguished and then disintegrated.  
"A fight is more interesting if the playing field is evened in my  
favor," Largo finished with an evil smirk.  
Twister lifted his armoured hand and regarded it. He tried to use his  
psionics, but found that he couldn't get them to stir. "Damping field," he  
concluded flatly.  
"Very good." Largo applauded politely. "While you were fighting, the  
good doctor and my assistant searched for your particular psi-frequency. You  
cannot use psionics while the inhibiter field is attuned to you."  
Flexing a hand, Twister felt the armour was almost back in shape, but  
Largo noticed the action.  
"And I have not gone to all this trouble just to see you try to blast me  
with that unusual armour you wear. Take it off," Largo pointed a hand in  
Sylia's direction, "or there will be another Saber to die." The Knight was  
still for a moment, then nodded slowly and darkness surrounded him. When it  
faded, a figure in a motorcycle outfit and helmet stood before the power-mad  
android. "Unusual method for removing a hardsuit," Largo commented, raising  
an eyebrow.  
"A friend helped me make it," Twister's normal voice shot back coldly.  
Both silver-haired android's eyebrows shot up this time. "Indeed? I  
suspect I know who... But no matter. Take off your helmet. I wish to see your  
face."  
"What does that matter to a dead Boomer?"  
Largo sighed dramatically. "Very well, perhaps if I offer some hope?  
Yanda?" he queried. The blonde woman nodded and pushed a button. A large  
section of wall behind Sylia lifted into the ceiling and a second later the  
biggest Boomer Twister had ever seen stepped out holding something, no,  
someONE...  
"NENE!?!" Twister shouted disbelievingly. And it did look like the red-  
head in her softsuit, struggling helplessly in the big Boomer's two handed  
grip.  
She saw him and hope flared in her eyes, "Twister! What are you doing  
here?!" The use of his name extinguished the coldness in his chest; it was  
Nene all right.  
"How touching. You DO know each other," Largo remarked as the Boomer  
stepped around the crucifixes allowing Nene a full view.  
"Sylia! You're all right! I..." Her next sentence died in her throat  
when she saw what looked like herself in her hardsuit, but with a hole in the  
forehead! "W-what's going on?" she asked shakily.  
"I wanted the Crystal Knight," he paused, "sorry, Twister here to be in  
a fighting mood so I switched you with an android double that I had handy and  
pretended to kill you." Largo smiled at the horrified Nene. "And it worked  
satisfyingly well."  
"That's HORRIBLE!!"  
"Thank you." He turned to Twister. "Your helmet?"  
Twister shrugged; it wouldn't matter much to show his face, and he was  
relieved Nene was alive. He lifted the helmet off his head and placed it on  
the ground. "Satisfied?" he asked.  
Largo was surprised. "A teenager?? A TEENAGER?!?" he demanded.  
"What, is that a problem?" The brown haired young man smiled wryly. "Ah  
well, 'tis sad to disappoint ye." Largo narrowed his eyes angrily. "If I  
defeat you, as you've apparently been itching to fight me all night, the  
Sabers and I get to go. Fair?"  
Largo's answer was to point his hand in the psionist's direction and  
fired one of his force bolts, but Twister was already in the air, arcing  
towards the reincarnated android. Dropping down near his opponent, Twister  
rushed the hyperboomer, knowing that hesitating would prove fatal with this  
adversary. He had fought and beaten Largo before, but he had the element of  
surprise then, and with Sylia and Nene captured he couldn't afford to pull  
his punches. Even without psi-boosting he was quicker than an ordinary human  
being, a fact that likely allowed him to be able to get a free punch in.  
Focusing his ki in his fist as much as he could, the strike streaked towards  
a surprised Largo's head, and connected.  
The results were surprising.  
Metal crumpled as false flesh gave way to the irresistible force of his  
fist. It continued inward halfway, crushing the manufactured brain inside the  
braincase, before the momentum of Twister's hand finally transferred itself  
to the stricken android's body. The head shot off the hand that had crushed  
it, dragging the body below it for a distance for a few feet before the whole  
lifeless mess fell to the ground. Twister stood in shock, withdrawing his  
hand back as it dripped Boomer fluids.  
"What?" he said numbly. "How...? My punch should've only knocked him  
back at best the way he was built last time, not destroy him!"  
"That is correct," a female voice said.  
Everyone focused their attention on Yanda, who had spoken, she in turn  
was intently looking at Twister.  
"What do you mean?" the psionist asked.  
Yanda smiled. "That was not the true Largo, only a duplicate installed  
with a weaker form of force projector to make it look like he was. No, that  
imitation was not him." Her next words were the biggest surprise yet.  
"_I_ am Largo."

Chapter Forty  
=============

The room was silent as Twister stood above the destroyed android they  
had all thought was Largo. Sylia cursed mentally for not realizing it; the  
fake had acted less superior than the previous Largo, a fact she had  
attributed to the shock of being defeated once. But neither had she suspected  
the female Yanda to be Largo's next incarnation. Something strange was going  
on here.  
Yanda came around the equipment she had been standing behind as Dr.  
Miriam gaped stupidly at her; this was news to him too.  
"I am Largo," she repeated, then reconsidered her words. "Or at least I  
am the newest reincarnation of Brian Mason." She eyed the surprised Twister  
as she came closer. "Admittedly, you are younger than I had thought, but  
nevertheless, I am pleased."  
"Pardon?" Twister wondered if he had heard that right.  
"You've passed my test."  
"Test?!?" Nene demanded incredulously in the huge Boomer's grip, still  
unnerved at seeing herself, admittedly a fake in her hardsuit, with a hole in  
her forehead. "This has all been a TEST??"  
"Yes," Yanda said, confirming it. "Perhaps I should elaborate. You see,  
when Largo was destroyed his death activated a revival procedure. But this  
had been ill-prepared, for Largo had begun to think himself invulnerable and  
started other plans before building another body for himself. He was a God,  
why should he bother? But he left several test androids of himself and they  
had no choice but to resurrect Largo, no matter what form he wore.  
"You see, my current body WAS an experiment. Designed to be a 'mate' for  
him and Sylia to be the mind engraved into it." Sylia looked like she didn't  
appreciate the honour. "The androids first loaded Mason's brain engrams, but  
I woke up before they could download Largo's memories.  
"I was enraged. They tried to explain, but I had them wipe their  
programming and not being fully sentient they complied. So then I was left  
with three android look-alikes of what I had expected to look like, and HAD,  
but stuck in this female form...and its hardware-burned imperatives.  
"The most compelling was to find a worthy mate, and obey him."  
Twister's eyes widened as he started to realize what she was driving at.  
"You don't mean..." he began, but trailed off. Yanda tossed her hair back  
with a sigh.  
"The parameters Largo placed in my body demanded my mate be a superior  
life form, and that it possessed certain strengths and qualities. Supposedly,  
that life form was to have been Largo, who was destroyed." Yanda smiled at  
the irony. "However, I watched Largo's memory tapes to understand what had  
happened, and drew a conclusion: he had been mentally unfit to be my mate,  
and by his own standards yet!  
"I now faced the same dilemma the androids which had activated me had  
faced. I needed a mate, so I decided to create one."  
"Understand this, I knew what happened to Mason, and saw what Largo did.  
A serious self-examination showed I needed to change or else face the same  
insanity Largo fell into. That meant accepting this form, which I have. And  
now, as you have seen, I am quite different from either of my predecessors,  
if I have to obey my mate then I will. But if my mate is of my design and of  
a similar will then I will be happy for we will desire the same things.  
"So Dr. Miriam and I created nanomachines, based on Dr. Stingray's  
work."  
She took out a vial from a coat pocket and tossed it to Twister, who  
cautiously grabbed it. He was starting to get a bad feeling about all this.  
"The vial you hold contains an improved version of the nanites used to  
change humans to Boomers. It will preserve your mental abilities while  
changing you into a hyperboomer similar to what Largo had been. Then you will  
be my perfect mate and I will have to obey you, but you will also be devoted  
to me."  
"And if I don't?" Twister asked her, dubiously holding the vial.  
"Then it would be a pity to lose such talented humans as your friends."  
"... I guess I don't have much choice." Before Sylia or Nene could  
shout, his fist tightened and the vial shattered, slicing his palm and  
releasing the nanites into his system.

Across town, a pair of scaly-lidded eyes blinked open...  
...and glowed.

Yanda smiled when she saw the brown-haired young man wince seconds after  
the vial was broken. Sylia kept a neutral expression, but Nene looked on with  
horror. "The nanites have begun their work," she observed, pleased that her  
plans were coming to fruitation at last. It was pity the process needed to go  
much slower than the ordinary conversion process, she thought, but a  
hyperboomer needed precision work.  
Twister ground his teeth together; his hand felt like it was on fire!  
Dr. Miriam frowned as he observed what his scanners were telling him.  
"The nanites are slowing down," he told the woman, who was the person he was  
actually working for all this time. He'd jumped at the opportunity to  
experiment with the nanites; the lure of becoming a powerful Boomer and  
gaining near-immortality had been too great to resist. Miriam would be his  
own best creation!  
Surprised, Yanda whirled to face him. "What? Why?" she demanded. Behind  
her, Twister gasped in relief as the pain lessened to more manageable levels.  
Blinking, Miriam studied his readings more carefully. "His physiology is  
different than what the nanites were programmed to deal with. A normal scan  
doesn't show it, but when I try more detailed readings I find abnormalities.  
Stronger skeletal structure, differently constructed muscles, more efficient  
immune system..." Miriam looked up, surprise in his eyes. "I don't think he's  
human."  
"Oh, you really want to make me feel better, don't you?" Twister said,  
grimacing at the pain. "So I had an accident a while ago that changed my  
body. Normal occurrence, absolutely bloody normal."  
"What sort of 'accident' was this?" Yanda said neutrally, turning back  
to him.  
"The sort that alters your body and gives you psionic powers." He  
shrugged. "At the time I didn't have much choice in the matter."  
"When did this..." Yanda began, but her attention was drawn by something  
that zipped into the room using the hole Twister had made earlier. It  
fluttered to a stop and perched onto the startled psionist's shoulder.  
"Char?!?" Twister exclaimed in surprise. "How did you get here??" The  
miniature red dragon chirped happily and settled down more securely.  
"What is that?" the blonde pseudo-sexaroid/hyperboomer demanded.  
Feeling better with Charcoal's arrival, Twister grinned. "A pet of  
another red-headed friend of mine who might be nearby." And closer than you  
think, he thought with rising humour.  
Yanda frowned. "That store owner? I'd received some disturbing reports  
about her. She should've been disabled, at least for one night," she  
muttered, pondering this new development.  
With his psi-powers nullified, Twister had been wondering how to free  
Sylia and Nene, but now the dragon provided a solution. "If you find her  
disturbing, this ought to be downright distressing. Char!" The mini-wyrm  
looked at him curiously. "Free Nene and Sylia and destroy that Boomer!!" He  
nodded his head to indicate the trapped Sabers.  
Miriam scoffed at that announcement. "How can that thing...?" The  
scientist's mouth dropped open when, after launching from the psionist's  
shoulder, Charcoal enlarged enormously in mid-flight. The gigantic Boomer  
Miriam had created dropped Nene so it could use its arms to defend itself as  
the red dragon ploughed into it with a deafening roar. The freed red-head  
scrambled frantically out of the way away from the two behemoths, heading for  
Sylia. Yanda began to lift an arm her way.  
"I don't think so!" Twister shouted, leaping forwards at his true foe.  
She blocked his kick with both arms, but fell back as she hadn't been fully  
ready to defend.  
"The nanites are in your system now. There is no point in resisting me!"  
Yanda shouted, responding with a barrage of punches aimed more at knocking  
him out than killing him.  
"Lady, you don't know me very well, do you?" Twister smiled grimly as he  
brought his hands up in front of him. Fighting the pain, he summoned his ki.  
His nanite-infected hand throbbed intensely, but he continued gathering power  
and a globe of energy appeared between his hands. "MOUKO TAKABISHA!!" he  
shouted, throwing his ki at the startled Yanda.  
The blue beam hit her with stunning force and she flew back towards  
Miriam, who quickly ducked to avoid being hit, crashing into panels hard  
enough to leave an impression in the metal. She fell to the floor before  
rising to shake her head; while she was much stronger than a sexaroid, she  
was not built nearly as well as her former self. Her chosen mate obviously  
had more than psionic power at his command, and whatever he had used had  
jarred and/or damaged a few of her systems. The setting was too uncertain  
now, she decided, best to retreat now and try again later.  
Yanda got up and ran out a small door that had been well hidden and  
unnoticed, Miriam following at her heels.  
"Sonofa..." Quickly, Twister looked to see how the others were doing  
before pursuing. Nene had found a release mechanism for the holds on Sylia  
and had freed her. The white hardsuit was opened on the ground while Sylia  
was quickly trying to reconnect the power supply. Nene, looking slightly  
nauseous, was taking her double out of her red suit. The battle between Char  
and the giant Boomer continued, more of a wrestling match actually, but it  
looked like the red wyrm was gaining the advantage. Personally, Twister was  
amazed the Boomer was standing up to his creation and wondered if Char was  
playing with the thing. He started to go after the two criminals who had  
fled, but Sylia's voice made him pause.  
"Are you well enough to go after them?"  
Twister held up his hand to check it. It looked different, paler than it  
should have been, and the pain was starting to travel up his arm. Still  
manageable, but barely. "I'm fine," he replied to answer her, and it actually  
wasn't too far from the truth. "I have to stop them or else they'll get away  
and do even more damage sometime later."  
Sylia nodded. "I'll try to find that damper keeping you from using your  
powers."  
Twister nodded, and then ran out of the room.  
"And be careful," Sylia added quietly.

He ran down a hallway and came across an area that looked like the two's  
main working area from all the equipment strewn about. A sound that came from  
a certain direction gave him a clue as to where his prey had fled and the  
psionist sprinted down the hallway from which it had come. He came across an  
open door and rushed inside, only to stop dead in his tracks at the sight  
that greeted him. It wasn't the fact that Miriam and Yanda were in the room;  
it was the struggling, purple-haired person gagged and strapped naked to a  
metal table that shocked him.  
Madagan!  
Of course, he thought grimly, they would have needed a test subject for  
whatever they had used to nullify his power, and the purple-haired Genom  
executive would have been perfect. How they had found out about her powers  
was unknown, but he wouldn't wish being a test subject for Miriam on anyone.  
>From the burning look she gave the doctor, Twister felt that she had plenty  
to pay back for what he had done to her.  
On hearing him enter, Yanda fled out the room's second door. Miriam  
tried to follow, but the door slammed shut and would not open again. Madagan  
stopped her struggling on seeing Twister's arrival, but didn't know him and  
warily watched from her helpless position. From a pocket, Miriam pulled out  
some kind of device and whirled to face the male psionist.  
"Stop right there, Crystal Knight, or I'll kill this woman!" the  
scientist shouted, sweat forming on his brow.  
Twister could visibly see the shock and amazement on Madagan's face when  
she realized who had come after her tormentors; this was the first time she  
had seen his male face. "And how would ye do that?" he asked the doctor.  
"There is a device implanted in her brain. One push of this button and  
it will activate. It is located by the pain center and once on it will  
produce unending agony." Twister digested this, taking note of the rage in  
Madagan's eyes, indicating the man had likely used it at least once before.  
"You seem to like inflicting pain," Twister observed, holding up his  
hand that was obviously different so that Madagan could see. "Torturing  
women, changing humans to Boomers, or at least trying to in my case." The  
Genom exec's eyes widened again as she realized what the hand meant.  
"Kidnapping Madagan to test the psi-damper, or whatever you call it, before  
you used it on me? How are you damping us both?" He put emphasis on the 'how'  
and 'both'.  
"We used a smaller prototype," Miriam gloated, completely missing the  
direction Madagan jerked her head, towards a blocky machine with a few  
glowing lights. "A larger one was made for you, being more powerful than  
she."  
"READY, weren't we?" Twister said offhandedly as Miriam slid across the  
far wall. Madagan tensed.  
"We were, and everything would have gone perfectly if that blasted  
creature hadn't shown up!"  
"You mean the one on the floor you're about to bump into?"  
"What?!" Panicked, the doctor looked down.  
A fatal mistake. Twister had been gathering himself and didn't waste the  
chance. He forgo the shouting of his ki move, and blasted the machine he knew  
to be the psi-damper for Madagan to bits. Miriam was momentarily shocked, but  
still managed to press the dreaded button, expecting his captive to start  
screaming.  
Instead, she began to glow.  
"I imagine she managed to burn out your little device," Twister said  
quietly.  
Horrified, Miriam tried to run, but was slammed into the wall by an  
unseen hand. The bonds trapping the purple-haired woman snapped open and the  
gag flew apart. Freed and glowing an angry yellow, Madagan slipped off the  
table and stood like a vengeful spirit.  
"So." She regarded her rescuer neutrally. "I finally see your face,  
Crystal Knight."  
"Aye, and this is the second time you've wound up without thy garments  
as well." He said that more to confirm his identity than for humor's sake; he  
wasn't feeling very funny right then. She covered herself with her hands,  
more out of reflex than modesty as she was too angry at Miriam to care much  
about dignity at the moment.  
"You turned away last time."  
"I'm in a hurry," he replied tersely. "The door?"  
She considered it, then nodded. The door opened at her silent command  
and Twister started for it.  
"No! You can't leave me here with her! She'll kill me!" Miriam pleaded.  
The brown-haired young man paused before leaving, looked Madagan in the  
eye and saw the burning fury directed at the doctor in them. He turned to  
regard the scientist with a frosty gaze.  
"Turnabout is fair play."  
He passed through the door's opening and it slid shut behind him.  
Madagan smiled thinly as she looked at the pale and heavily sweating  
doctor.  
The room was soundproofed, a fortunate fact.

Running down the passageway, Twister sighed at what he had done. He  
couldn't have stopped Madagan anyway without psi, not that he had any desire  
to guessing what had happened between her and Miriam. And the doctor knew the  
faces, if not the identities, of the Knight Sabers.  
It was extremely doubtful he would get the chance to reveal that  
knowledge now.  
He was heading into a more run-down section of tunnel and knew he was on  
the right trail when he saw footprints made when Yanda had stepped in a  
puddle caused by a leaky pipe.  
Wait.  
A puddle of... water?

"Going somewhere?"  
Yanda stopped dead when she heard the angry female voice behind her.  
Turning, she fired a force bolt from a hand, but the smaller figure behind  
her dodged the blast. When she landed, Yanda saw it was the red-headed store  
owner that she had sent that former Outrider leader against. And the young  
woman looked seriously irritated. The blonde frowned; she was almost to her  
planned exit and now this person had to find her. She kept her arm raised,  
backing away as the other person slowly advanced.  
"I hadn't hoped to meet you," she said.  
"Oh, but _I_ did," Darlene bared her teeth in a small snarl. "Sending  
Steelfist after me, kidnapping the Sabers, playing cat-and-mouse with  
Twister, and other things like converting helpless humans into Boomers." She  
took another step. Twister's change to Darlene had seriously confused the  
nanites and a spell had destroyed them before they could do more damage. Her  
hand was still messed up, and HURT, but as Twister she'd be able to fix that  
later. Right now, she wasn't in a pleasant mood. "You're NOT getting away,  
Yanda."  
"I beg to differ with you, I am!" Yanda fired another, stronger bolt.  
"Shield Field!" Darlene snapped out, and the blast impacted harmlessly  
on the protecting spell, wavering the air around a circular area of calmness  
centred on the mage. The blond pseudo-sexaroid stared in disbelief, backing  
away slightly.  
"This isn't going to be a grand battle, Yanda," Darlene proclaimed.  
"You've pissed me off BIG time. I can't afford to destroy you, but neither  
can I let you go." She frowned, then pointed a finger at her foe, who tensed.  
"Kind Bind."  
Threads shot out from the mage's finger in a wide pattern and whipped  
around the startled blonde, who had jumped forwards only to be caught in the  
onrush of the tough material. She snapped some of the threads, but more  
entwined themselves around her. Arms, legs, eyes, mouth; all were being  
wrapped with the whitish substance. Darlene stopped the flow when she saw  
Yanda was too busy struggling to hinder her next spell.  
The mage intoned:

"Thy limbs grow stiff,  
Freedom has fled,  
No buts or if,  
Akin to the dead.

You can not stir,  
Nor try to flee,  
Like the chained cur,  
Stay where you be."

"NO!" Yanda shouted as her struggles weakened; she found herself  
stiffening! There was no reason for it, but she was finding it increasingly  
difficult to move her body below the neck. She tried valiantly, but it was no  
use; she found herself immobile in the threads that had critically detained  
her.  
Darlene walked over and stood above the helpless female, regarding her  
catch of the day. "I'm tempted to go into clothing sales and use you as a  
mannikin. You'd make a lovely one." She dispelled the threads and Yanda was  
rid of the white bindings that were unnecessary now; the second spell was far  
stronger.  
"Let me go!" Yanda demanded.  
"Not bloody likely," was the response. Darlene flipped the helpless  
blonde over to prevent her from seeing what happened next; she wasn't above  
some mischievousness. "All right, Knight, send her off," Darlene said before  
activating the armour. When, as Twister, he was in the suit, he checked and  
with some relief discovered Sylia had finally found the damper and turned it  
off. His hand was immediately fixed as he Healed it, undoing the damage the  
nanites had done to him.  
"See you later, Yanda," his modulated voice said, and teleported her  
away to his underground lair before he himself teleported to where the fake  
Largo had been.  
Sylia wasn't in the room, but Nene was at the controls that Yanda and  
Miriam had been standing behind. She had suited up again and had her helmet  
on. Still, he could almost see the antenna on her helmet perk up visibly when  
she noticed his arrival.  
"Twister!" Nene exclaimed, and rushed around the panel to give the  
crystalline armoured figure a relieved hug. "You're okay!"  
"Not for long," Twister wheezed, she had forgotten her suit's strength  
augmentation and was hugging a little too firmly.  
"Oh! Sorry," she said, abashed. "I was so worried! Sylia said you'd be  
okay, but still..."  
"I know." He looked at where he had last seen Char fighting the giant  
Boomer. There were scraps and pieces but nothing more of either party. "How  
did Charcoal do with that Boomer?"  
"Ah... He...ate it," Nene answered, not without a little hesitation.  
"Then disappeared." Twister snorted with amusement.  
"Figures."  
"Sylia took the...damaged android," the red-headed hacker understandably  
didn't give the double of her any personal reference, "to dispose of it while  
looking for the machine that was damping your powers. I traced all the  
information in the system here and deleted everything, except other possible  
locations where more data and/or materials could have been stored and copied  
it before trashing that too."  
"Great." The Crystal Knight took a last look around at the place, then  
shook his head; so pointless. "We'd better go. Madagan is here, so tell Sylia  
to hurry."  
"Madagan?! Why??"  
"They needed a test subject." Nene digested that information, and he  
imagined her eyes widening. "Now she's free and is probably going to trash  
the place. I know she's usually a calm thinker, but I have a bad feeling she  
will make an exception in this case." He paused. "After she finishes with  
Miriam."  
Nene swallowed, and contacted Sylia who came back swiftly. Twister  
teleported them out of there immediately.  
Then he checked on the others.

"You mean you actually USED the homing lasers???" Twister said  
disbelievingly after teleporting the group he'd met to his underground  
cavern.  
He'd found Linna, Priss, and Sylvie in the damaged D.D. near the  
location they had set up to meet later. They had to; the D.D. was not  
something easily carried around or left behind. Especially when the cloak he  
had made for it was gone! Which was the reason for his amazed question after  
Sylvie explained what had happened.  
"I was just trying something I saw on an anime once!" he exclaimed. "I'm  
not surprised you blew up the emitters. I never even set the computer to use  
it, that's why I didn't mention it."  
"How did the J-1 fire it then?" Sylvie demanded.  
Twister ran a hand through his hair, and sighed with a bewildered shrug.  
"I haven't a clue. Maybe the magic affected it somehow."  
"Great," Priss said. "Remind me never to ride something YOU make." She  
snickered at the warning fist he aimed in her direction.  
"Watch it, Priss," he advised. "I'd get you tomorrow for that crack, but  
I'll be busy getting ready so you're lucky."  
The others paused, then looked at each other. "Ready for what?" Linna  
asked curiously. Twister's face turned a little melancholy.  
"I'm leaving this universe in two days," he explained quietly.  
To say the others were stunned would be an understatement.

Quincy calmly regarded the remains on his office floor of what had once  
been a very sophisticated android duplicate of Madagan, that was now so much  
scrap after the surprising arrival of the real one. Even now, the slightly  
haggard woman was glowing a little as she glared down at the burning remains.  
Her use of telekinesis was a very convincing evidence that this was indeed  
the original. The CEO of Genom looked up mildly.  
"I trust this can be explained, Miss Madagan?"

Chapter Forty-One  
=================

"So you're really going?"  
Darlene stopped her packing of what little she was going to take in a  
large backpack and looked up at Nene, who appeared to be near tears. Her face  
softened and she stood up to embrace Nene in a hug that the other red-head  
reciprocated. "Hey, don't cry," she chastened. "I'll be back, pretty soon  
thanks to the quirks of the way I'm travelling."  
"I know," Nene sniffled as they separated. "I'm just worried that you'll  
never come back."  
"I'll be back. Count on it." The mage winked. "Then we'll REALLY turn  
this city upside down." She smiled roguishly as Nene giggled. "Come on, the  
others are waiting in the cave."   
The rest of the minor packing was finished in a more lighthearted mood.

As Twister, he teleported them both to the huge underground hangar he  
had accidently made two years ago. The rest of the Knight Sabers, Mackie, and  
a seriously anxious Ryouga turned to them when they arrived. He'd given his  
sad good-byes to Sylvie and Anri at the store and asked them to keep running  
it in his absence. He had also told Charcoal to stay to protect the two  
sexaroids, hoping the dragon would obey.  
"You ready?" he directed to the bandanna wearing martial artist.  
"Can we hurry?" Ryouga demanded. Linna elbowed him, frowning.  
"We need to say good-bye, you big goof!" Ryouga sighed in annoyance and  
stepped away from the rest of the group to let them do so.  
"I doubt he'd be in as big a hurry if he had an idea of what's going to  
happen," Twister said with a grin. "The method I figured out is a little  
spectacular."  
"I can't wait," Priss quipped, grinning, then turned serious. "I hate to  
see a friend leave, so you better come back soon or I'll come after you,  
another universe or not!"  
"With you still owing me for subbing for you at Hot Legs? Oh, definitely  
not; I REALLY hate crowds, you know."  
"That's not what Leon told me from what he saw." She grinned as he gave  
her an irritated frown, then he chuckled.  
"You two getting together at last? Yipe!" Twister cried, avoiding the  
annoyed singer's swipe.  
She glared at him for a second, then sighed disgustedly before stepping  
forward to hug him. "Just come back soon."  
"I will."  
She let go to let Linna hug him as well. "Same goes for me," the black-  
haired woman said with a cheerful, yet sad, smile.  
"Thanks, Linna."  
When she released him, Twister turned to Mackie. "I know we haven't  
really talked too much to each other, but I'd just like to say thanks to you  
too, Mackie." He held out a hand, which Mackie accepted with a sheepish  
smile.  
"Yeah, I'm sorry we haven't talked much either," the younger Stingray  
said.   
"Maybe next time," Twister offered before releasing Mackie's hand, then  
frowned as he remembered something. "You know... I never did do anything for  
that photo you took..." Mackie suddenly started sweating.  
Sylia took mercy on him. "Have you prepared the 'package' yet?" she  
inquired, taking the psionist's attention off a relieved Mackie.  
"Yes, I'll get her." He closed his eyes to concentrate and suddenly a  
new arrival was teleported in. "Good evening, Yanda," he said pleasantly. The  
glare he got back was definitely not friendly.   
She was still in the dirty and stained clothes that he, as Darlene, had  
caught her in during that last battle. But she couldn't move, or make any  
action to initiate any contingency plans she may have made in case of  
capture. He and Sylia had agreed that destroying her, or even stasis, might  
not be wise until the senior Stingray could make sure it was safe. The others  
hung back, finding it hard to believe this gorgeous woman was Largo. Priss  
smirked at the idea of Mason/Largo becoming female, if a Boomer one.  
Yanda could still talk though.  
"Teleportation, telekinesis, levitation; all that and you waste it!" she  
cried out at Twister. "You and I could rule this planet and make it a better  
place."  
"I won't, because one; I have no desire to play king, two; your methods  
leave something to be desired, and three; there are still things about myself  
I need to learn about before I settle anywhere."  
"What are you talking about??" she demanded.  
For a reply, Twister took a small bottle of cold water from a pocket and  
splashed his face with the contents. Yanda was absolutely shocked at the  
transformation. Darlene smirked at her expression, and said, "Here's a hint.  
You would've needed a large amount of imagination to guess my two forms were  
the same person, hmm?"  
"You... you were the owner of that store?!? The one with the unknown  
power?!"  
"And that you tried to kill because I was an uncertainty? Oh, yes, I've  
been switching from psionics to magic for a while now."  
"Magic?! Don't tell me nonsense!"  
"Then how did I change? What keeps you still? There is nothing physical,  
no detectable energy, no change in your programming, nothing but the spell  
that I cast to keep you immobile." Darlene stepped away from the confused  
Yanda. "Maybe in a couple of centuries I'd even be able to turn you human.  
Now THAT would be ironic." She turned to Sylia. "You can take her out with  
the disks I made." Darlene had created small disks that allowed the Sabers to  
travel to the underground facility freely by means of a teleportation spell.  
It could come in handy for them, the mage figured.  
"Thank you, Darlene. And I wish you well too." Sylia smiled and gently  
hugged the red-head before letting her go.   
"Good-bye then," Darlene said, and smiled sadly at them all. She needed  
to get back, but didn't like having to leave friends behind. The mage sighed  
and turned to the one who was waiting for her. "Ready, Ryouga?" The lost boy  
started and picked up his pack, adjusting it into place.  
"Yes, let's hurry!"  
"Alright then, let's get a distance away first." They walked until they  
were ten feet away from the group watching. Then Darlene stopped, turned and  
waved one last time before taking a deep breath.  
And began her spell.

"Powers of magic shall heed my call,  
Now's the time to pierce the wall,  
Of time and space, with driving force,  
Open the gate that starts our course!"

A glowing circle seven feet in diameter on the floor surrounded the two  
travellers when Darlene finished. Energy discharges crackled along the edge  
as something began to happen to the floor enclosed within the circle.   
It looked like it was being pulled in a bell shape into the ground, but  
Darlene and a suddenly terrified Ryouga stayed standing in empty space where  
the floor used to be. Looking down briefly, the lost boy saw the floor  
becoming a tunnel, not a dark tunnel, but one that swirled images along its  
walls. He looked away quickly. Those watching were amazed, and a not little  
awed at what was happening.  
"Almost like a black hole was forming," Sylia observed quietly. "Time  
and space are curving below them, but not using gravity. And she's waiting  
for it to open fully..."  
Darlene started again, this time in a shout.

"The gate is open, our path is set,  
Through the Void the goal is met,  
The link is made, so safely start,  
From this universe we now depart.

Let us travel, without delay,  
Protection unending throughout the way,  
Magic shall gather, roil, and foam,  
For now begins the voyage HOME!"

The energy crackling at the edges intensified, and spread a little ways  
from the circle, making the observers step back save Yanda, who could not.  
One of the bolts lanced straight for Darlene, who expected it and was ready.  
It was akin to plugging in a light socket when it hit; light flared from the  
circle. Darlene and Ryouga glowed slightly, then dropped into the tunnel  
below and began their journey home.   
But Darlene was new to this form of travel and there was some leftover  
magical energy where they had left that was uncontrolled. Most of it kept the  
gate open longer than it should have, the rest was attracted to the spells  
keeping Yanda paralysed. Like a neon snake, a curved line of purple energy  
lashed out from the circle and discharged into the android. The startled  
Sabers leaped backwards at the display. The meta-sexaroid jerked, but it did  
no harm to her systems.  
But now she could move.  
Yanda assessed options. She couldn't activate any defensive mechanisms  
and some lingering remnants of the spell still slowed her to normal human  
levels. The humans behind her could damage, or destroy, her if they had  
weapons, which was likely in at least two cases. Not very good conditions.  
And she had never made preparations for her demise. This was her third  
time alive, and Yanda had figured that if she failed again then there was no  
point in resurrecting yet another incarnation of Mason. If she had succeeded  
with Twister, she would have made some. Her plan had depended on finding a  
mate, and she still settled on Twister as the best logical choice by far,  
even with the startling revelations she had seen. But Yanda was free now and  
her mate was escaping to another universe by a means she could not hope to  
duplicate.  
There was little choice, really.  
She ran for the circle.  
Sylia and the others were too slow to react to Yanda's sudden freedom  
because of the spectacle they had just witnessed. Priss shouted angrily, but  
it was too late. Yanda jumped high, fell into the gate, and was immediately  
out of sight.  
Priss gaped. "Fuck me! She's crazy!"   
There was a sudden crackle of energy, another flash, and when the light  
was gone, there was no gateway and no trace of what had happened.  
All four Knight Sabers were stunned.  
"Do you think she made it?" Linna asked no one in particular.  
"Can we do a damn thing if she did??" Priss said in frustration.  
Sylia looked at where the three had vanished, and sighed. She pulled out  
the disk Darlene had given each of them for easy access to the cavern. "We'd  
better go." When the others looked at her, startled, she shook her head.  
"There is nothing we can do. Darlene should be able to handle her if Yanda  
survived and arrives in her universe. There's no point in worrying about what  
we can't help."  
"I guess you're right," Nene said slowly, reluctantly. Sylia smiled at  
her and despite what had happened the red-head cheered.  
"Let's go home," Sylia said. Unevenly, the four disappeared from the  
cavern.  
Leaving it empty and quiet, as if nothing had ever happened. 

"You can open your eyes now, Ryouga."  
Blinking, the frightened young man opened his eyes and viewed...nothing.  
Absolutely nothing. "W-where...?" he stammered out, registering the fact that  
he and Darlene hung unsupported in a white nothingness. The red-head chuckled  
at his question, but Ryouga noticed she looked tired; the effort to get them  
here must've taken more out of her than he had assumed.  
"This is the Void," Darlene explained. She took a look around,  
interested; it was her third time here, but the second time she had been  
unconscious. "For a blank slate it certainly is impressive."  
Daunting was more the word Ryouga labelled it. It was just too much...  
too much Void for him. "How long will it take? Are we even moving?"  
"How can you tell in this place?" she said exasperated. "I suppose we  
are; I can still feel the link. I suggest we close our eyes."  
"Why?"  
"The first time here I was told perception had something to do with Time  
in this timeless place. If we both close our eyes, we might get there  
faster."  
Ryouga immediately closed his eyes.  
Darlene rolled hers before following suit.

Yanda's fall had been a mixture of terror and fascination. The Well had  
shown some sights some astronomers would kill for. The fact that her survival  
was uncertain left the experience rather flat.  
Then she had exited the Well and into the Void.  
The whiteness was an illusion; her optics registered no light, yet she  
could see herself. Obviously impossible, yet it was happening. When she  
looked back, she saw the mouth of the Well rapidly receding into what passed  
as the distance in this place.  
The only thing she COULD label this place was the Void.  
First I find out the mate I chose can become female, now this, she  
thought. Yanda knew of the infinite universe theory, but never expected it to  
be proven to her in this manner. As a test, she closed her eyes and ran a  
self-diagnostic. Everything was in perfect order. When she opened her eyes,  
she received yet another shock. There were two beings in the distance ahead  
of her where there had been no one before and one of them was...  
Twister!  
He was in that female form with the young man whose name she knew to be  
Ryouga. They floated as she did in the Void, but they were much closer to the  
Well she now saw ahead. Yanda kept quiet, to keep her element of surprise. As  
they approached the Well, Yanda wondered at the mate she had chosen. What  
would have happened if the nanites had transformed him completely? That was  
the question know that she knew about this transformation ability. If they  
could have. He had shown unusual resistance to the change even in the short  
time he had been exposed to them.   
She saw the two enter the Well and smiled as she herself came closer to  
it.  
Wait!  
"No!!" she screamed as she MISSED the opening. Horrified, she realized  
that she had not been meant to be included in whatever Twister had done and  
somehow her course had not followed the their's exactly. That exclusion had  
made her drift off course.  
And given the nature of the Void that meant she could quite possibly be  
here forever. Horror began filling her mental processes.  
"MORTAL."  
Yanda whirled at the sound of the booming voice that seemed to echo  
massively despite the Void. Her eyes widened and jaw dropped at what she saw.  
"YOU NEED TO BE ELSEWHERE."  
An incredible force suddenly deflected Yanda from her current course and  
she screamed as she was buffeted by it.   
She was gone in an instant.  
The owner of the voice might have smiled if the being had been human.  
"ALL IS AS IT SHOULD BE."

===========================================================================

\--END OF TP3--

===========================================================================

\--TO BE RENEWED IN TP4-- 

===========================================================================

=================  
Twister(aka Darren Steffler) e-mail at:  
twister@tendo-dojo.ranma.net | fmw675@freenet.mb.ca  
Homepage at: http://www.winnipeg.freenet.mb.ca/~fmw675/  
Anime Fan!!! Must watch BGC and Ranma 1/2 to the infinite!


	6. Twisted Path 4.1

Bert Van Vliet skyknght@sentex.net  
Twister twister@escape.ca

Bert: Greetings folks! We're at it again! (Impressive size for something that started as a few joking lines in an email, isn't it? ^_^)

Darren: Now there's an understatement if I've heard one. -_^ Started out small, but grew into this monster. Hope you faithful readers enjoy it. And now........

Bert & Darren: Iiiiiit's showtime!!!!  
Twisted Path 4 - Nerima Knights  
Written By: Darren Steffler and Bert Van Vliet  
Part One - What Knight be this?

It was quiet inside the simple room used for housing the Amazon magess Perfume's guests. The futon on the floor was made and, strangely, a chair split in twain was set aside on the floor near one corner of the room.

Suddenly, flames burst into existence in the empty area's center. This was no ordinary fire, for it blazed a purple color and left the floorboards untouched. The flickering flames rose to new heights, then died out as quickly as they'd erupted.

Two beings now stood revealed in the room.

The Chinese village of the Amazons might not be home, but for Darlene, the name Twister had gotten used to calling her female form, it was a welcome sight for sore eyes. It had been a long time away for her and, while she had left some dear friends behind in the other universe, coming back through the Void was an achievement that she was now pretty certain she could repeat if needed. Given enough practice.

"Are we...back?" the other person she had brought with her asked hopefully.

"Yeah, I think so, Ryouga," she replied, sighing and smiling with relief as she looked back at her trans-universal companion. Somehow, Ranma's rival for Akane had wound up in the universe that, for her, she had been thrown into two years ago. Exactly how that had happened was a mystery, and Darlene idly pondered whether it had anything to do with wormhole theory. After a moment, she dismissed that speculation and just wrote it down as part of Ryouga's strange ability to wander anywhere.

"I'll change and send you to the Tendo dojo." Seeing the bandanna-wearing young man drift off into love-lorn visions of Akane, she shook her head and shrugged off the backpack she wore, dropping it to the floor. Rummaging through the pack produced quick results; she made a pleased sound and took an invisible object from it.

One mental command later, and the red-headed girl was shrouded in darkness. Split seconds after that, the diminutive red-headed female was replaced by a tall, armor-clad form. The armor was crystalline in appearance, and apparently modeled after ancient medieval knight armor. Black plate etched with silvery designs was interconnected by a fine shimmering mesh. It was an impressive sight in the mostly empty room. The sudden appearance of the armor suit immediately jarred Ryouga out of his wistful trance.

Inside the armor, Darlene had become Twister, the male side of his forms. He had originally started out as male, but some major events in his life had blessed, or cursed depending on your point of view, him into switching back and forth between the two sexes. He had mostly gotten used to his female side during his stay in the Bubblegum Crisis universe. Mostly.

"Okay, Ryouga, I'm going to send you to the dojo," Twister's distorted voice told his companion; it was the Crystal Knight's voice when he wore the magical armor. "Please don't mention our little... trip, okay?"

Ryouga stiffened indignantly. "Do you doubt my hon..." His voice ended abruptly as he had vanished due to Twister's teleportation power. It was rude, but the psionicist had no desire to delay his own agenda. He wanted very much to see Nabiki again and there were a few minor matters to attend to first before he could do that.

"Minor?" the Crystal Knight muttered aloud, shaking his armored head disbelievingly as he went over that last thought.

"I wish it were...."  
Somewhere else.....In a universe not-so-far away....

A loud, droning whine carried over the muted grumble of the late afternoon traffic choking the streets of downtown Mega-Tokyo. A few pedestrians noted the noise as they shoved their way through the milling throngs of people on the sidewalks, and looked around for the source. The noise grew louder, beginning to override everything. A few car drivers even leaned out through their open windows, thinking perhaps that a jet plane was coming down overhead. The drivers immediately in front of the rubbernecking motorists were not happy, as loud bangs announced the fact that a few collisions had just occurred because of it.

With the roar of powerful jet turbines, a silver-bedecked figure shot down the length of the street, flying at about fifty feet above street level. The brightly shining figure was humanoid in shape, looking vaguely like a robot of some kind: heavy armor plating covered it entirely, colored mostly silver, with some blue plating on the shoulders and torso. Its head had a v-shaped slot where its eyes should be, the slot glowing a bright red color and seeming to glower ominously at everything. Blue 'wings' jutted out from the sides of the head, approximately where the ears on a human would be. Short wings stuck out from its back, and people with really sharp eyesight were able to discern jets of some kind on the figure's back.

After a casual glance, it became obvious to even the most callow observer that the flying object was a powered armor suit: a hardsuit. It appeared to be completely oblivious to everything on the ground below it, concerned only with its flight. When it reached the end of the street, the gleaming hardsuit shot into the high skies. The silver vision vanished within moments into the low-level clouds and towering peaks of the city skyscrapers, leaving the commuters below to ponder the strange sight they'd briefly witnessed.

SkyKnight cast a last glance over his armored shoulder at the rapidly receding traffic below, grinning to himself. While he wasn't supposed to be buzzing the everyday traffic when out for a 'leisure flight', at times it was just too much of a temptation. The looks on the faces of some of the civilians when he flew by were priceless. He chuckled again to himself, remembering some of the more shocked expressions he'd seen.

The silver-clad Knight Saber banked sideways as a radio transmission antenna whipped past him. He weaved a tortuous path at breakneck speeds through some of the nearby rooftop structures, just for the hell of it. Bert grinned to himself; God, he loved flying!! It had been so long since he'd just gone flying for fun, he couldn't remember any of the details. All he knew now was that it felt fantastic, and nothing was going to ruin his enjoyment of the moment.

There was a loud, crashing explosion of some kind that rocked the air behind him, the noise fading out into a sullen rumble.

"Aw hell," SkyKnight muttered to himself, casting a glance at the gloomy-looking sky overhead. "Bloody thunderstorms. Great." It was funny, though; he'd checked the weather forecasts before becoming airborne, and there hadn't been any mention of rain. Oh well, time to head home then, and....

The world suddenly seemed to blow up. A loud, almost electrical crackle filled the air around him, and SkyKnight suddenly found himself bathed in coruscating purple light.

The air seemed to become uncomfortably hot; energy sizzled and spat around him, every warning light his hardsuit possessed flashing into life on his viewscreen. Shutdown warnings, overload warnings, collision warnings... What the hell was going on?! Had he been caught in a lightning strike?! Impossible, his mind answered a moment later; if it had been lightning, he'd have been dead. Besides, who'd ever heard of purple lightning before?

SkyKnight threw full power to his jets, trying to outrun whatever had overtaken him. For a moment, it seemed as if he'd been successful, as the radiance filling his sight seemed to diminish a bit. Then it was back, along with something else.

Something started dragging him backwards through the air.

"What the hell is going on here?!?!" the silver hardsuit roared, thrashing around in midair. He was very definitely being dragged backwards now, when according to his readouts, he should have been hurtling forwards at better than 500 km/h airspeed. SkyKnight looked behind him to see what, if anything, had a hold on him.

When he saw what it was, he immediately wished he hadn't looked: a huge, pitch black rift was apparently floating in midair about twenty feet behind him, and long tongues of purple-white energy were streaming from the rift. The energy streamers were licking like hungry flames on a piece of wood on his hardsuit exterior, although there didn't appear to be any effects incurred as a result. Air howled into the void with the roar of a speeding freight train, and it appeared to be adding the mysterious suction that was slowly drawing him in.

"Oh my God, this isn't happening! please tell me this isn't happening!!" Bert prayed fervently; no divine entities appeared to be listening to him, however. Instead of an answer appearing, or the phenomenon disappearing, a bright pinpoint of purple light began to grow in the center of the gaping hole in the fabric of reality. He stared numbly at it, dry-mouthed with fear as it swelled and grew; part of his mind was screaming in anguished protest at what was happening. It just wasn't possible; it defied all earthly logic! It was insane!! It....

"Aaaaaaaaarrrgh!!!" The agonized yell was torn from the silver hardsuit as, with an echoing boom, a violently flaring burst of purple-lit energy shot from the void in front of him, and slammed square into his chest. Knives of pain seemed to slice through him instantly as the energy wave washed through him, searing every fiber of his being with a fiery-feeling shock. The wave passed through him like he hadn't been there, continuing on to loop around behind him in midair, almost like a snake curling around on its prey.

SkyKnight fought desperately to escape the impossibility that was happening to him. Jets screamed tormentedly, trying to wrench him loose from the inexorable pull that now had him less than ten feet from the rift. His mind shuddered away from the brief glimpse he'd had of ...of ... his mind refused to put a definition to the whirling images he'd seen inside of it, instead opting for gibbering in fear. He had to get away!!!

The curling energy bolt behind him seemed to pause briefly, then it pounced on the struggling Knight Saber mercilessly, enveloping him completely...and shoving him forwards into the blackness of the rift with its impact. There was another rolling detonation, and the rift collapsed, leaving no indication that it had ever existed at all.

Below, the sprawling metropolis continued to hum with its normal activities, unaffected and uncaring.

SkyKnight, however, had vanished with the rift.  
Ranma universe...

Several minutes had passed since the disaster occurred, and Prof. Miyabi still couldn't believe what had happened.

She had asked Twister to come with her to the village of the Amazons to help in the creation of a new sealing crystal. The crystal kept a powerful and evil spirit bound into black stone, stone that she currently stood upon. It was the duty of the chief magic-user of the Amazons to renew the crystal when it became too corrupted by the evil of the spirit.

Perfume, who was the current Master and an old friend, had asked her for help; a great honor for Miyabi who knew the elder magess' standards. A female apprentice of some power had also been requested, a role Twister fit perfectly despite being male half of the time. They had come and, after a few minor mishaps, completed the crystal. Miyabi bitterly remembered her sense of accomplishment and pride when they had finally finished that task.

Unfortunately, the older crystal had been left for too long, and it was only with Twister's warning that they had been even half-prepared when the crystal imploded. The spirit had taken over its power and tried to destroy the new lock to its prison. Miyabi, Perfume, and Twister had succeeded in driving back the evil, but not before it had done one last bit of revenge: Twister had been sucked into a rift and, with all the free power in the room fouling her mystic senses, there was no possible way to track her.

"" Lotion cried out in Chinese, wrapped in Perfume's arms as she feebly tried to get to the place where Twister had disappeared. Masque, Perfume's other apprentice, kept silent as she stared at where Twister had vanished.

Perfume knew Miyabi did not know Chinese, so her response was in Japanese. "I'm afraid she is, child. And without some kind of link, it will be nearly impossible to track her...if she survived. Inter-dimensional travel is very hard for magic-users in any case without some help."

Miyabi rebelled at this appraisal of the situation. "But it has been done!"

"Yes," Perfume agreed. "And do you know any beings that would help you, willingly? I do not; it is no light task." Lotion looked up hopefully at Miyabi.

The Professor slumped in defeat. "None, right now," she admitted reluctantly. Lotion's face fell at her admission, and she buried her face against Perfume in despair, weeping.

"May I lend assistance?" boomed a voice. Startled, all whirled towards the source, and eyes widened with surprise at what they saw.

"Who are you?" Perfume demanded of the powerful looking form.

"I be the Crystal Knight," Twister responded. "I will help thee."  
In an unknown place, somewhere out there....

Endless tracks of light blurred past, whipping streamers of illumination that were nearly impossible to see. Whirling nebulae of brightly glowing mists peppered the stark blackness of the void, flashing by at speeds that defied the imagination, and description. There were invisible zones of blast-furnace heat, followed by regions of cold that made the Arctic seem temperate by comparison. It was impossible to tell if time was passing or not, since there was nothing, no solid, fixed, familiar point of reference he could use to judge by. There was only a vast blackness, terrifying in its immensity.

The Void, in its immensity, has many regions. Darlene knew of only the white featurelessness of a totally empty 'area'. Bert, on the other hand, was going through a more 'cluttered' area, thus the blackness.

SkyKnight tumbled through the blackness of the void, a flickering silver speck caught by forces beyond his comprehension. A pulsing purple glow surrounded him, and extended out behind him like a comet's tail, marking his trajectory for any beings that were watching.

"Come on, Bert," he muttered to himself. "Wake up, dammit! This isn't happening!! You're dreaming! For God's sake, wake up!!!" His last statement had more the sound of a desperate plea for help, and he shut himself up before he could completely panic. It was only through sheer willpower right now that he was staying calm...well, mostly calm, anyway.

The void surrounding him was so featureless, he couldn't really tell if he was upright or upside-down, although he had a vague impression of being spun around every so often. There was also the feeling of fantastic speed; even though he had nothing to base it on, he had a hunch he was flying faster than normally possible. He again experienced a surge of angry frustration over his predicament, the feelings of complete helplessness not improving his frame of mind in the slightest.

He tried again to see if he could break free of whatever had a grip on him, but it was a futile effort; his suit refused to move, or even respond to him. It wasn't a malfunction, he was sure of that much at least. It was just like...like technology didn't work here, or something was preventing its function. His viewscreen was working, allowing him glimpses of the rare sights that there were to see out here... wherever 'here' was.... but his suit was frozen solid; he couldn't move a finger now if his life depended on it. The only other thing he could see was the pulsating purple glow that was all around him.

The silver-and-blue battlesuit sped onwards into the darkness of the strange, somehow dimensionless void, like a piece of paper caught in a tidal wave, trailing purple streaks of light.  
Ranmaverse...

Perfume warily looked at the armored form in front of her. Even with the fog of leftover power from the incident, she could sense the mystic power of the being's armor. However, what was disconcerting was the fact that she could not sense the being himself, or itself; it was as if the being was the armor. Stranger things had been birthed by magic, however, so it was entirely possible. In any case, she felt no evil in the creature, so she did not attack.

"You wish to help find our missing apprentice?" Perfume asked cautiously.

"Yes, I do. However, t'will take much time."

"In your terms or ours?" Prof. Miyabi queried; some beings had different perceptions of Time than humans.

"Mine. Unknown for thy human scale." The stranger shrugged. "T'will be faster using personal effects, and with thy," he pointed at a startled Miyabi, "help. Ye be her mentor?"

The Professor nodded. "I am."

"Then I will start. I will need thy help in the first. None other will look, or longer it will take. We go now." Surprised, Miyabi began to protest, but both she and the stranger vanished before she could say a word.

"" Perfume said sourly. Having someone just pop into and out of rooms without so much as a greeting or farewell was extremely annoying.

Surprisingly, the black and silver form reappeared, and spoke to an amazed Lotion, whose tears were still flowing. "Do not weep, lass. I be sure the...lost one is unharmed."

"R-really?" the young woman sniffled. The helmet nodded, although it seemed oddly hesitant to Perfume. "Then I thank you." Lotion sniffed once and smiled.

There was a pause, then the armor vanished again.

"" Perfume muttered, brows furrowing. She shook her head after a moment, and decided to dwell upon it later. "" She left the room and her two apprentices followed.

Lotion turned back once for a long moment, before reluctantly turning away.

Miyabi raised an eyebrow when she realized that it was her own house that she now stood in. The strange being hadn't followed, but her own pack, and Twister's, had. Another, larger backpack that she didn't recognize also sat with the bundled belongings.

The armored being then appeared, and she was willing to swear that she heard it sigh. Nonsense. "All right, where do we start then? I don't want to waste another minute," she said impatiently.

"We begin," the being loudly began, then its voice went down to a normal volume, "with a confession."

"What?!"

A dense black cloud shrouded the armor briefly, startling Miyabi, and then disappeared, leaving behind something that startled her even more. Her jaw dropped, almost to the ground, and her eyes widened. "Twister?!?!?" Darlene's shoulders slumped.

"Yes. I..." She didn't get a chance to say more, for Miyabi rushed up and hugged her tightly, cutting off what she was going to say. Darlene smiled and hugged the relieved Professor back. "It's good to be back."

Miyabi released the young woman and held her arm's length away from her, as if she was disbelieving her own eyes. "How...how did you get back? And why like that?" The fact that she meant the 'powerful being' act was obvious.

"Took two years," the red head muttered, eyes downcast. "I finally got around to it from the place where I ended up."

"Two..." Miyabi began, then frowned as she looked at Darlene carefully. "That's far too short a time to come up with something like trans-universal travel, especially at your age. Age... You don't... You haven't changed at all!" she accused.

"Well, that's two things to blame on the Event: an easier time casting spells, and a lot longer lifespan," Darlene said bitterly. At the Professor's questioning frown, she wryly added, "I found out a few things about what had happened to myself when I was away."

Prof. Miyabi could tell this was a touchy subject for her student so she changed the topic...for the time being, anyway. "Why didn't you tell us who you were at the village?" Seeing Darlene's sudden hesitation and slight blush gave her the answer.

"Twister!" she scolded Darlene, who looked down at the floor, shamefaced. "It's because of Lotion, isn't it? That was not a nice thing to do, and," she stressed, as Darlene was about to say something but closed her mouth with a snap, "you're only avoiding the issue."

"Can you bloody well blame me?!" Darlene protested indignantly, temper rising. "Sure she's a lovely girl and, from what I could tell in the brief time we met, she's a very nice person! I guess I should be flattered that she's also attracted to me! But when I'm female?! And that," Darlene was shouting now, making Miyabi recoil in surprise at the outburst, "is why I'm so bloody afraid of her!!!" She stood there, panting when she was finished, glaring at Miyabi.

"You don't need to shout to answer me," the Professor said in a deceptively mild tone, rebuking the angry young woman. The red-head visibly deflated at her words.

"Sorry." Darlene blushed in embarrassment as Miyabi continued to look at her silently. "My personality in this form changed a little while I was away. I'm...a little more emotional now."

"So I see."

"I just... I just need more time to think about what I'm going to do about Lotion."

Miyabi raised her eyebrows. "And what about Natsumi and Nabiki?"

"I love Nabiki, not Natsumi," Darlene said without thinking, then her eyes widened, slapping a hand over her mouth, as she realized what she had said in front of her magic professor.

"At least you can make up your mind on one thing, and shows why you don't want to face Lotion if it's another you love. I mean, besides the other reason. Can't you just tell her no?"

Darlene gaped at her incredulously. "You've never tried dissuading an amorous Amazon whose attracted to someone, have you? Trust me, if she's anything like Shampoo, no will not work. Definitely not work," she said glumly, depressed.

Miyabi shook her head. "Well, at least you're back safely, even if the others don't know yet. After being gone so long I'd better just tell you to go home, unpack, and try to get ready for classes tomorrow." Miyabi smiled, with a familiar gleam appearing in her eye. "You can tell me what happened to you after classes. It's not every day I get to talk to someone who has been to another universe and I'm very curious as to how and why you made that armor." Seeing Darlene's hesitation, she smiled again with more humor and waved at the red-head to move. "Go on, get out of here."

Darlene smiled back, more reassured. "Okay. It's great to be back, but I think I'll run. I've done enough non-leg transportation for today." She hefted her bag, and, awkwardly, the larger backpack that she had brought to carry mementos back from the Bubblegum Crisis universe.

Before she left, Miyabi keeping the door open, Darlene hesitated and said, "Professor?"

"Yes?"

"Um, could you please call me Darlene when I'm female?" she asked quietly. Seeing Miyabi's startled look, the red-head explained further. "I used that name for my female half in the other universe, and....I've gotten used to it."

"Very well...Darlene."

Darlene smiled her thanks, and rushed off, eager to return to her apartment.

Miyabi shook her head and had to agree that...Darlene did seem different in personality.

At least her story promised to be an interesting one.  
Somewhere, someplace....

Time becomes meaningless after a certain point in a journey, moreso when the traveller has no idea where he is, how he got there, or where he is going. SkyKnight was discovering that first hand; with nothing to use as a frame of reference, not even his suit chronometer, he felt like he'd been hurtling through space indefinitely. In fact, he was beginning to think he'd died, and had been sentenced to fly uncontrollably forever through the hereafter, alone. The long journey was starting to wear on his mind, driving it close to the breaking point as the lack of scenery began to border on sensory deprivation; it had gotten worse when the blackness turned into an even worse, blank whiteness. He was morbidly sure that, if something didn't happen soon, he was going to lose his mind and go crazy...if he wasn't already insane and hallucinating all of this.

The minute Bert realized he'd spoken that aloud, he wished he'd kept his mouth shut: he was now hurtling towards some kind of a swirling, multicolored cloud, one that seemed to crackle with energy. SkyKnight began to sweat as he saw blue lightning bolts play over its surface periodically, and he went dry-mouthed with fear. He was never going to be completely easy around electricity again; Hollister and his torture device had seen to that. Whatever that cloud was, he had no desire to see it up close.

With frantic desperation, SkyKnight tried to move...and yelled in surprise as his sudden, violent motion turned his trajectory into an end-over-end, high-speed cartwheel, as if he was spinning around his center of gravity. Overcoming his surprise at being able to move again, the silver-clad hardsuit fired his jets, trying to halt his forward motion.

Nothing happened; his jets didn't respond.

"Aw goddamn it! Now what?!" he snarled to himself. SkyKnight tried some of his other systems as a check: scanners, lasers, beam sabers, emergency thrusters, railgun launcher ... all of them refused to function. Damn it, everything should have been working! All his status readouts indicated normalcy, and apparently everything was functioning....except the chronometer, he suddenly realized. Time was definitely not on his side, but had appeared to have taken a holiday; the clock LED readout was very firmly stuck on 12:00 AM, like a VCR after a power outage.

Floundering around, Bert was able to stop his tumbling motion after a lot of trial and error, and resume what he thought was an upright position. The cloud loomed larger and larger on the 'horizon' the entire time, and he was sure he could almost feel an atmosphere of .... expectant waiting?

With terrifying swiftness, SkyKnight shot into the cloud. As he hit the fringes of the phenomenon, he thought he glimpsed something 'far' off to the side of his current position. He had the brief impression of a huge maelstrom of energy that was emitting a raging torrent of purple and blue light. That was all he had time to see as the cloud swallowed him completely.

There was the instant feeling that he'd stopped, somehow, almost as if he'd hit a spongy wall. Everything was bathed in a diffuse white glow, with other speckles of color occasionally flashing into brief view. Bert looked down at himself, and noted that his suit was still outlined by a purplish glow. That was all there was to see; the rest was a vast expanse of whiteness unlike the Whiteness of the Void outside.

"You are not yet ready." The voice, if it was a voice, throbbed with power and authority, almost rattling his teeth. It seemed to come from everywhere at once.

"What the hell's that supposed to mean?! Who are you? Where am I?!" he shouted back, feeling suddenly very lost and alone. His amplified voice sounded in his ears like a very poor imitation of the voice that had spoken.

"You are not supposed to be here."

"Well then send me home, dammit!!" he yelled. "I didn't ask for this!! Just get me out of here!!" SkyKnight looked around again, and still couldn't see anything.

"It is too late, the die is cast." SkyKnight was almost willing to swear he heard the voice sigh before it continued. "You have the potential, and there is no one else."

"Now wait just a minute," SkyKnight countered. Sweat began to drip down his face inside his helmet; he didn't like the implications of 'it is too late'. "What are you talking about?!" He wished his suit systems were working; it would be so reassuring to have workable particle lasers right now.

"Prepare yourself, knight. From this road, there is no turning back."

"Hold it!!!" SkyKnight bellowed. "What the hell do you mean?! What are you going to ...do...to...me?" his voice trailed off, as he noticed the purple radiance surrounding him began to get brighter and brighter. Nameless terror suddenly gripped him.

"No!!!" he shouted to the presence that was out there. "Whatever it is, I want no part of it!! Leave me out of it!!"

"You have no choice. There is no one else." As if the words had been a signal, it began.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaagh!!!!!" SkyKnight screamed helplessly, as the purple light flared to a white-hot intensity, and began burrowing into him. He could feel it as it tunnelled, feeling like it was slowly stripping away his molecules one at a time.

He held a hand up in front of his visor, and watched as his gauntlet and arm became translucent with glowing energy. When he looked down at himself, he could see the same thing happening to the rest of his body; it was almost like he was looking at a purple and white x-ray photograph of himself, with the white representing his bones. The remorseless energy continued to sink into him, driving towards the core of his being.

"Nooo!! P-P-Please, s-s-stop!!!" he pleaded, shaking as waves of pain raced through him. "Don't want.....can't handle......" He clutched at his helmeted head as it suddenly seemed to be filled with a welter of strange, incomprehensible knowledge about all kinds of subjects. Somewhere in the whirling mix of images, he recognized some of his hardsuit ideas, circuit diagrams and schematics from past upgrades, and ideas for future upgrades. All the data churned through his mind at dizzying speed, almost like someone had thrown his mind into a blender and hit the high-speed switch. His creativity was in a wild overdrive mode!

The ordeal had yet another phase; as he felt the energy still seeping into him, he suddenly realized that he could somehow... sense... his hardsuit, almost like he was becoming part of his suit. It was an utterly alien feeling, cold and frightening: in place of nerves, it felt like he had wires; in place of his skin, he could feel hard armor plating. In place of his mind....

"Nooooo!!!!!!" He howled, fury and stark terror igniting within him. "Leave me alone!!!!" He was not going to just sit there while some...some....some thing decided to alter his very being. He was never, ever going to be forced to do something he didn't want to do, or to become something he didn't want to be. In the depths of his mind, SkyKnight grabbed onto that spar of stubborn, angry defiance, and began using it like a crowbar to force back, somehow, the energy affecting him.

"Mortal, what are you doing?!" the voice asked suddenly, sounding worried.

"I. Will. Not. Be. Controlled. By. Anyone!!" Bert snarled back through clenched teeth. He didn't really understand how he was doing it, but it felt like he was succeeding in reversing what was being done to him. The pain was incredible, though; he felt like he was being flayed alive.

"You do not understand what you are doing. The consequences of your actions will be dire indeed if you do not accept your fate."

"Fate?!" the silver Knight Saber howled. "Fate?! This isn't fate!! I'm being railroaded, you bastard!! I don't want whatever it is you're trying to foist off on me!!" There was a moment of silence in which everything seemed to freeze for an instant. When the reply finally came, it was utterly final.

"It will not be allowed. You must accept the charge that has been given to you."

The energy enveloping SkyKnight suddenly squeezed agonizingly, gouging into him again and destroying the foothold he'd gained against it. As he thrashed helplessly, barely hanging on to consciousness from the pain, he heard the voice again.

"I am sorry, but you no longer have a choice in the matter."  
Ranmaverse...

Twister's roommate Yasuro looked up from his computer when he heard the door open, and raised his eyebrows when he saw who stood in the door. "That's dangerous, Twister. You shouldn't come in like that," he advised, waving at Darlene's female state as she quickly walked inside and closed the door.

Darlene sighed as she dropped her stuff on the floor. "Well, I was going to change at Nabiki's, but nobody was there and I wanted to get back in a hurry to relax."

"How was the trip?"

"Oh, eventful," Darlene said, grinning tiredly at the massive understatement. "I got chucked into another universe for a few years and I just got back." Yasuro had been turning back to his computer, but he did a double-take when he heard that.

"Another...universe? Years?" he said hesitantly. The red-head didn't look any different to Yasuro, but he'd learned his roommate was odder than most people.

"Yup!" She smiled impishly at her roommate before picking up her stuff again. "It's happened to me before, as you well know, only this time I managed to make a spell to get back to this one."

"I... see." Yasuro rubbed the back of his neck as he digested this. "In that case, will you be going back to your home universe?"

"I..." Darlene paused at the question, then walked into her room to drop off her stuff before coming back to drop down on the couch with a heavy, heartfelt sigh. "I'm not sure. I guess I should." She threw up her arms. "But I just got back to this one!" she said, finishing with a yawn. "And it wasn't easy, so I'll be around for a while."

"Never mind the fact that Nabiki's in this universe. Right?"

Blushing furiously, startling Yasuro at the large display of emotion, Darlene ducked her head. "That's also true," she said in a low voice.

"Aren't you going to change back?" he said, changing the topic. "Not that I mind having my roommate looking like a cute girl." Darlene blushed again as she scowled at him.

She stood up, yawning once more. "Yeah, I'd better. I got used to being female most of the time in the other universe. I'll tell you about it later. Right now, I need sleep."

"I guess I can wait." Yasuro grinned as the suddenly weary Darlene stumbled for the bathroom for hot water, thinking that his roommate certainly wasn't dull. Not by a long shot.

The rest of the week was blissfully ordinary. The only problem was that Nabiki seemed to have her hands full until the weekend, and even that message was given by Yuriko, Nabiki's roommate. The blue-haired girl also happened to share the same magic class with Darlene and was a good friend with both of the two. Natsumi, a magic-user and Nabiki's rival for Twister, tried to take advantage of Nabiki's absence, but she seemed to sense that Twister had realized some time ago whom he really loved. She tried to hide her disappointment, staying friends with him, but she never asked him for a date anytime that week.

Finally, Saturday arrived and Twister teleported to Nabiki's place to pick her up so they could both go to the Tendo Dojo. The first thing they did upon seeing each other was kiss deeply, Yuriko enviously sighing when she saw this.

"My," Nabiki said with a warm smile when they separated, still in each other's arms, "you're certainly enthusiastic today."

"It's been some time since I saw you last," he replied truthfully enough.

"How was that trip you went on with your professor?"

"Long," he sighed.

"Hmm. You'll have to tell me about it some time." She smiled.

"Uh, yeah. We'd better get going though. See you later, Yuriko." Their blue-haired friend waved at them and they disappeared.

They were happily welcomed by everyone when they arrived at the Tendo Dojo, although Twister had to dodge Happosai's welcoming pail of water. The old hentai was promptly blasted away by his newly-developed pure-TK energy blasts, the only thing he had cause to thank Madagan for showing him the ability during his stay in the Bubblegum Crisis universe.

Twister soon found himself in his old room, thinking. It hadn't been meant to be a guest room, originally, but with all the people arriving in and out of the dojo since Ranma's arrival, it had been deemed necessary. He had been placed in it when he had first started living at the dojo, so there were quite a few pleasant memories associated with the now-empty room.

He had come here to try to figure out when the best time to tell Nabiki what had happened would be. Some things were best left unmentioned, like the time he had been nearly killed and had an arm and a leg blown off; he wasn't sure how she would react to that. He wasn't sure he wanted to know.

"Argh. When should I tell her? I can't keep it a secret forever," he said aloud, quietly talking to himself. He shuddered at the thought of telling her about Lotion; maybe that was one thing best left unsaid. He sighed, and reached for the ceiling, stretching a bit.

"Well, at least nothing else could happen...."

He should've known better.  
Somewhere....close....

"It is done."

"No," SkyKnight croaked weakly. "Damn it, no...." He felt absolutely horrible, almost like he'd been torn apart and glued back together with five-minute epoxy. Every muscle was stiff and sore, and he desperately needed a drink of water. He tried moving, but found he still couldn't; he'd been immobilized at some time during the 'process' that had been inflicted on him. He had the impression of floating, but couldn't really say why.

"I cannot determine if you have injured yourself by your struggle," the voice boomed. "However, there is no more time in which to do so. You must go, now. Farewell."

"Wait a minute," SkyKnight rasped, trying to look around. "Go where?! Damn it, what is going on here?!" A loud roar began to sound in his ears, and he suddenly felt like he was being sucked into a vortex of some kind. The multicolored cloud around him began to recede.

"Goddamn it!" SkyKnight yelled at the retreating cloud. "What is happening?!"

The silver-garbed Knight Saber never received an answer.  
Ranmaverse...

The moment after Twister uttered the words, he regretted them. Somebody, somewhere seemed to have heard the words that were a Very Bad Thing To Come From One's Mouth.

He was abruptly glad he had been standing close to the door, for in the middle of the room, a...a rip, for lack of a better term, in the fabric of space/time opened wide on the floor, jagged waves of purple light lining the disturbing sight. A purple light that suddenly seemed very, very familiar to the psionicist. He felt his stomach sink with a premonition of impending disaster.

Then he heard a voice beginning to come from the hole.

"........aaaaaaaaaaaammmmmmmmnnnnnnn iiiiitttttt!!!!!"

Something large, metallic, and glowing purple was spat upwards from the gap-in-space near the floor; the portal closed instantly with an echoing rumble, almost like thunder.

The object the rift had spat out almost hit the ceiling before gravity finally stopped its ascent, pulling it into the floor in a heavy-sounding crash. The humanoid shape hit face down with a metallic clang, and also an audible grunt of pain. Purple radiance lined the shape for a moment, then disappeared, the energy seeming to soak into it as it vanished. During the entire time, the shape twitched as if connected to an electrical current.

Looking at it closely, Twister recognized it as some kind of hardsuit, or its equivalent, wherever it came from. The wings built into the shoulder blades, and the jet pack assembly, similar in configuration to a Boomer's, suggested flight capabilities, although short or long range he didn't know. Its coloring was dark blue and silver, the blue mostly on the shoulderpads, and silver for the rest of the body.

If it weren't for the fact that the contours of the hardsuit suggested a man, and that he'd never heard of anything remotely resembling this strange design that looked similar to old-fashioned knight's armor, Twister would've thought this stranger was a Knight Saber. A little belatedly, he visually checked for weapons, and saw twin muzzles on either arm, apparently apertures for some kind of energy weapon. There were twin objects mounted on its shoulders that were likely weapons as well, but he was disinclined to scan the suit with TK. That would be rude.

"Ohhhhh," the hardsuit groaned, as it struggled to get up. The silver-garbed form unsteadily weaved to its hands and knees, "damn but was that a rough ride!" it said in Japanese. The armored shape slowly straightened up. "I've got to get those stabilizers checked." There were some cracks and pops from the silver figure as it stretched cautiously.

"If you're okay, do you mind telling me who you are and how the heck you got here?" Twister asked mildly, speaking for the first time since the new arrival's entrance.

The helmet jerked around to look at him, and he was instantly reminded of an old television show, Battlestar Galactica, with the evil Cylons and their glowing red visor eyeslots: his visitor sported a glowing crimson, V-shaped slot in his visor. While the strange traveller didn't seem evil, he prepared himself for a fight, just in case.

"How I got here?? Where the hell is here?!" the figure demanded, a hint of panic in his voice as he waved powerful-looking arms around to indicate the general area. The helmet on the suit swivelled around, as if trying to find something familiar-looking.

"This is the Tendo Dojo. Nerima, Japan," Twister said, answering him before repeating his own question. "Who are you?"

"Uh? Oh, I'm....SkyKnight," Bert answered distractedly, still a little dazed from the express trip, and the sudden stop he'd taken. "Tendo...Tendo... Now why the hell does that sound so damn familiar?"

On a hunch, Twister started giving names. "Nabiki Tendo, Akane Tendo, Ranma Saotome, Genma..." When he saw SkyKnight slap hands on his helmet, he stopped the recitation.

"R-R-Ranma?! Ranma ½????" Bert gaped inside his helmet. No way!! It was impossible!!

"I take it you've seen the show," Twister said wryly, beginning to become curious, as the stranger had used the anime and manga's more popular title. That meant he came from a place that had the show.

"Me? What about you?? Who are you?!" This was getting crazier by the minute; first that rift with its purple energy bolt, then the ride to end all rides, now this! Bert tried futilely to wring some kind of sense from everything that was going on.

"My name's Twister. I got dragged into this universe by a miscast spell," the young psionicist replied. Immediately, he could almost feel the disbelief from the silver figure when he mentioned that word. "Yes, it was magic, and along the way I got altered by something so that I don't need to worry too much about the fights that usually happen around here." He demonstrated by snapping off a few punches and kicks that Bert had trouble seeing at all. "What's your story?"

"Oh, what the Hell." Bert shrugged mentally; he'd have to tell someone so he could get home, and this guy seemed to be friendly enough. "My real name is Bert, and I was...not dragged really, even though I don't know how it happened, taken from my universe and landed in another."

"Wait a second," Twister frowned. "You make it sound like this isn't your first time."

"It isn't. My first experience with inter-dimensional travel was a helluva lot nicer than this one. Just poof, and there I was. This last one though..." He rubbed the side of his helmet, trying to remember what had recently happened.

Unfortunately, there were some large gaps in his memory, holes where...nothing seemed to exist. He could remember some parts of his journey, like the really hair-raising near-collisions with what had looked like large asteroids, but the rest was...hazy, indefinite. He... he just couldn't remember much between his disappearance from Mega-Tokyo, and his reappearance here.

There was also the fact that he felt...odd. He absolutely ached all over, almost like every muscle in his body had been cramped up for a long time. At the same time, however, he felt... felt... he couldn't quite pin down what he was feeling, but it was definitely different. He noted that Twister was waiting patiently, tapping his foot, and pulled his mind off of considering his condition, and continued explaining.

"I was just flying along, minding my own business, and then this crazy bolt of purple lightning, or something, hits me from out of this rift that appeared out of nowhere. The next thing I know I'm on the rollercoaster ride from Hell," he fumed. "I mean, I like speed, but that ride was...hey, you okay?" he said, a little concerned when he saw Twister's face develop a sickly, ashen pallor.

"Did you say purple lightning?" the psionicist said, dreading the answer.

"Yeah, purple. It was bloody weird." Seeing Twister groan and cover his face with his hands, Bert started getting suspicious. "Hey....you didn't have anything to do with that, did you?"

"I'm afraid I think I did," the young, brown-haired man replied. He detected an almost instant rise in SkyKnight's emotional temperature, and raised his hands to forestall an angry reaction, trying to explain what he'd meant to the displaced silver hardsuit.

"The same thing that changed my body and made it tougher, also gave me powers, psionic and magical powers," the young man explained, sighing. "Up until a little while ago, I was in the Bubblegum Crisis universe and I....accidentally drew more magical power, Wild Magic, than I could handle safely. I released all that I had in order to get rid of it, and it vanished into a rift of some kind. Wild Magic is what magical energy in its raw form is called, I've found out." Twister sighed again, and looked directly at Bert.

"And it looks like that bolt wound up hitting you, I'm afraid."

"Oh, that's just perfect," SkyKnight retorted. "You always fling trans-dimensional, reality-distorting bolts of magic through the Void or something?!?"

"Hey, it wasn't exactly planned at the time," Twister said, defending himself.

"And that's supposed to make me feel better?!"

"I can try sending you back," Twister offered.

"No thanks," SkyKnight snorted. "I'll walk. I don't need a grand tour of the cosmos, all expenses paid."

"Look, I'm really not that bad at handling magic."

"From where I'm standing, you're not that good, either."

"Okay, okay! Time out!" Twister shook his head. "We're not getting anywhere with this."

"Gee, you mean you noticed?!" Bert blinked as Twister narrowed his eyes at him. "Jeez, you remind me of Sylia when you do that," he muttered.

Twister stared. "Wait a minute... You know Sylia?? As in the Knight Sabers?!"

Bert pointed to the lettering on the side of his helmet antenna wings. "Where else did you think I got a hardsuit? K-Mart? Been with them since 2032."

"I thought so but... I don't remember you. Wait..." Twister slapped his forehead. "Oh, right. Infinite possibilities. Must be two completely different BGC universes."

"You've been to Mega-Tokyo too?"

Twister nodded and smiled. "And friends with the KS. That's where I...er...lost it and released that energy."

"Why?"

"Madagan."

"Yeah, that would do it." SkyKnight suddenly chuckled, adding "I think Priss would make a good second reason at times." They both snickered for a moment. Bert sighed, glancing around at the room. The floorboards creaked ominously under his armored weight, and he briefly hoped he wasn't going to wreck the place accidentally; he knew the Tendo family had enough repair bills as it was with Ranma around.

"The main question," he noted, "is what do I do now? I can't exactly walk around here in my armor all the time. Besides the fact that it's obviously technology years beyond what they have here, it's more than a little noticeable."

"No!" Twister exclaimed dryly. "And here I thought everyone had silver-and-blue hardsuits in their closets!"

"I need some helpful ideas," Bert growled irritably, "not smart remarks. I get enough of that from Priss or Linna, thanks." Twister grinned briefly, then turned thoughtful.

"Hmm. I think...." he started, when a loud yell from the hallway drowned out all other sound in the house.

"Ranma!! You jeerrrrrkkk!!"

"Uh oh." SkyKnight started to turn around, when a running young man with black hair, blue eyes, and Chinese clothing darted into the room, moving almost inhumanly fast. He was evidently fleeing someone's wrath, because he didn't even notice the hardsuited figure standing next to Twister. Instead, he ducked behind SkyKnight's armored form.

Unfortunately, this left Bert standing in the direct line of fire for what happened next.

"Come back here you jerk!!!" Akane's voice hollered from outside the room. In the next instant, she came through the door with a flying kick that was evidently intended for Ranma, but instead connected with the displaced silver Knight Saber. There was a loud clang, and a brief "Oh shiiiit!", as SkyKnight flew backwards, smashing through the wall into the back yard beyond.

"Oh boy," Twister sighed, covering his eyes with a hand as a loud clang followed by a splash sounded from the yard. Deathly silence fell for a moment.

"What the heck was that thing, Twister?" Akane asked, puzzled, having regained her composure for a moment. Ranma didn't say anything; he was nervously watching Akane to make sure she wasn't going to belt him.

Twister started to answer, but then there came the sound of a surging blast that resolved into a howling drone of some kind from the backyard. A moment later, a dripping and slightly dented silver-clad form loomed in the hole in the wall. Akane and Ranma backed away a step as SkyKnight clambered back into the room through the hole. The balefully-glowing eyeslot on his helmet swung over to regard Twister.

"I've changed my mind," the armor-clad figure told him. "I'm leaving the suit on; it's much safer. For me, I mean." The helmet swivelled to pin Ranma with a red-lit glance.

"You're Ranma, I presume," Bert inquired. Ranma nodded.

"Good," SkyKnight said. "I have some advice for you: don't get me involved in your fights. I don't need the hassle. As it stands now, I think I owe you at least...this!"

The silver Knight Saber's hand flashed forwards, grabbing Ranma by the tunic front. Before anyone else in the room could react, SkyKnight casually pitched the young man out the hole in the wall, headfirst. A loud splash sounded again.

"Now we're even!" SkyKnight called out the hole. Akane stared at him incredulously.

"You're not going to have problems fitting in," Twister assured him, shaking his head with a wry grin. "The only problem you may have is staying in one piece."

"You asked for it, you creep!!!" Ranma-chan's angry voice sounded from below as running footsteps pounded up the stairs.

As SkyKnight readied himself for an attack, Twister stepped in front of him and started to shout to Ranma. "Forget about it, Ranma! The guy's just a little mad right now."

"A little?" murmured Bert.

"So calm down and..."

Drenched from the pond, Ranma-chan hadn't listened and came tearing into the room, starting to leap at the target of her anger. However, Twister had began to walk closer to the door and both were unprepared to prevent a collision. They collided with a wet smack and Ranma-chan, being somewhat airborne at the time, hit high enough so that Twister's face was in the middle of her chest as they both toppled over.

SkyKnight winced inside his armor. If he had been hit by someone going as fast as Ranma-chan without his armor, he would have expected something to be hurt on his person. Fortunately, he had been told by Twister that changes had been done to the psionicist's body that allowed him to be able to survive things that happened routinely here. Indeed, he chuckled a bit when he noticed one of Twister's hands, fingers drumming the floor impatiently after a second when Ranma-chan didn't move. This was because of the argument that she and Akane had started up when Ranma-chan, who hadn't bothered lifting herself off of Twister, continued unabated.

"Baka! Look what you did!" Akane yelled.

"Hey! It's not my fault Twister got in the way!"

"Stupid! You're the one who wasn't looking!"

"Hey, you uncute tomboy, look who's talking!"

"You ducked behind that guy!"

"Hah! I..."

"Ahem," SkyKnight interrupted, and when both angrily looked at him, he mutely pointed to the drumming fingers. Ranma-chan now remembered her position on top of Twister. Red-faced, she hurriedly scrambled to get off of him. However, he wasn't a he anymore as a result of Ranma-chan's wet clothes soaking Twister enough to trigger the change.

Darlene sucked in a huge breath and sat up panting. "Finally! I breathe once more."

Still flushing, Ranma-chan said, "Gomen. Why didn't you say or do something?!" Her 'twin' snorted a little.

"I was afraid of being punched through the floor considering where my face was, that's why," Darlene said as she stood up.

Needless to say, Bert was just a tad bit surprised when he saw Twister had become a look-alike of Ranma-chan. He was ready for Ranma's change, but not this one. "What the...? You too? Hey, shouldn't you look like a female version of yourself?"

Darlene sighed. "Complications. Something else affected the curse and I'm not sure myself what all the ramifications are."

SkyKnight affected a thoughtful pose. "Well, at least now I know."

"Know what?"

"How they manage to get shots of both Ranma and his female side in the same picture." He had to laugh at the look on Darlene's face. Ranma-chan stared in confusion from the silver-armored stranger doubled over in howling laughter, to Darlene, who had an expression wavering between serious irritation and grudging amusement.

"What's he talking about?" she inquired. Behind her, Akane had a similar puzzled look.

"It's a long story," Darlene sighed, covering her eyes with a hand. "I can explain later. Will you knock it off?!" she snapped to the still-laughing SkyKnight. "It wasn't that funny!"

"You didn't see the look on your face," he replied, snickering. At length he regained control of himself, looking over at Darlene. "Seriously, though, I'm going to have to take the suit off soon and power down. I'll have to risk getting knocked through the wall again, I guess." The helmet cocked in a sideways glance at Akane, who flushed guiltily.

"Well, if Akane can hold onto her temper for once, it shouldn't be a problem," Ranma-chan assured him. Darlene smacked a hand over her face, again, looking imploringly at the ceiling.

"What do you mean, 'if I can hold onto my temper'?" Akane asked, eyes narrowing angrily. "I wouldn't have to worry about losing it if you'd stop being such a jerk all the time!" Ranma-chan stalked over to stand nose-to-nose with her.

"Well if you wouldn't overreact all the time to everything I say..."

"Quiiiieeeeetttt!!!!!!!" SkyKnight thundered, cranking his helmet amplifiers to maximum, almost blasting everyone out the door with the sound shockwaves. Stunned silence filled the room for a moment. "Thank you! Could we please shelve the bickering?! You two sound worse than chickens on a manure pile!!" Darlene burst out laughing at his comparison; Ranma-chan and Akane glanced at each other quizzically, and then nodded. With blinding speed, they both kicked the silver hardsuit back out the wall in a perfectly synchronized set of double kicks. There was another clang and splash. Ranma-chan stuck her head out the hole.

"Who asked you to butt in, you tin-plated creep?!" she yelled. "I...yeeee-ipe!!!" She ducked as a blindingly bright red energy blast slammed through the hole, barely missing her, opening a new skylight in the roof. There was the angry roar of jet turbines from outside, like someone had just landed an F-16 on the lawn. Scant seconds later, the hole in the wall became slightly larger as SkyKnight bashed through the suffering edifice.

"I don't normally fight women," he snarled at Ranma-chan, "especially wet-behind-the-ears twerps like you, but in this case, I think I can make an exception." Ranma-chan's blue eyes flared angrily, and she got set in a ready stance.

"I'm a guy, you oversized, chrome-plated, bolt-bucket!!" she shot back. The two began circling each other warily, and Darlene realized she was going to have to intervene, and fast, as the two combatants flicked punches at each other, ducking and weaving at flashing speeds. Akane had backed against the wall, out of the way of the rampaging pair.

Darlene's mind raced, trying to come up with some kind of spell to stop them, but she couldn't think of any made to stop fights peacefully. Oh well, she was going to have to wing it. She squared her shoulders and took a deep breath, as SkyKnight and Ranma-chan stepped apart for a moment. As they got ready to go at it again, she chanted:

"Before this spat gets out of hand,  
Fighters now freeze where all you stand!"

Instantly, SkyKnight and the red-headed, pig-tailed girl froze, like sculpture. Frost appeared on SkyKnight's armor plating and Ranma-chan's clothing as they stood there. Oops, she'd thought of just making them immobile but an image of ice statues had crept in. They couldn't move, which was good, but their temperatures seemed to be dropping rapidly.

"Now then," Darlene said, dividing her glare between Bert, Akane, and Ranma-chan. "Can we all behave like adults now?" She mentally cancelled the spell before the two immobile forms got too cold, and both stumbled when released.

"D-d-d-id y-y-you have t-to s-stop us t-that way?" Ranma-chan chattered through her teeth, hugging herself for warmth. Darlene didn't say the spell hadn't exactly done what she had wanted.

"It worked didn't it? You seem to not be wanting to fight anymore."

"I n-need to s-soak in the b-bathroom." Forgetting all about SkyKnight and Akane, Ranma-chan rushed out of the room.

"Interesting way of stopping a fight," SkyKnight commented.

"Err...yeah. Normally I don't do that, but you're new here." Darlene's brow furrowed. "You don't sound like you're cold."

"I was," SkyKnight said smugly. "but my suit's environmental sensors re-activated after you unfroze us and thawed me out a little with my heating systems."

Darlene blinked. "I didn't realize I did that. Still...I guess I realized your suit needed to be frozen too."

"Um..." Akane wasn't sure what to make of the silver armored figure. "Who are you anyway?"

"I'm called...SkyKnight," Bert boomed dramatically through his speakers with his modulated voice.

"I can see you don't like the name, but we can call you something else if you want..." Darlene offered, grinning.

"A-hem!" SkyKnight cleared his throat, glaring a little at the two whose lips were twitching with amusement. "But you can call me Bert." He flipped up the helmet visor, revealing snarled red hair and greenish-brown eyes. He smiled at Akane, making her feel more relaxed now that she could see his face. He looked at Darlene. "Until I can return back to the universe from where I was yanked from, that is. Hint, hint."

"I get the point," Darlene sourly said. "I said it was an accident. And I have successfully travelled from one universe to another, on my own for once. It shouldn't be too hard sending you back to the right BGC universe. It'll just take me a little time figuring out how to send you to a universe that I've never been to."

"And in the meantime...?" inquired Bert.

"Well...me and Nabiki are living by the University now so I'd imagine... Umm... Akane...?"

She nodded. "Sure. He can stay with us until you can send him back." Akane smiled at Darlene. "We survived having you here so he shouldn't be any problem."

"Thanks...I think." Darlene looked up at Bert's face. "Well?"

"Do I have a choice?"

"Not really, no."

"Then I accept your kind offer to grant refuge to this errant Knight, M'Lady." Bert bowed deeply to Akane, who blushed from his thanks.

"Gmph," Darlene struggled not to laugh.

Akane whirled on her. "What's so funny?!"

"Just imagining what would happen if Kuno or Ranma saw Bert doing that to you. Probably over-react, as usual."

"Over-react?" Bert queried, looking from Darlene to a now concerned-looking Akane, who nodded.

"Ranma tends to act without thinking..."

"I do not!!!!" blared a voice from the bathroom.

"...and he might misinterpret your actions, meaning a fight." she finished, ignoring the interruption. "Kuno, well... Kuno challenges everyone who even speaks to me to a fight. He's the fencing champion of my high school."

"Fencing, huh?" Bert grinned evilly, as his right arm came up. "Wonder what he'd think of...this!" A crackling snap-hiss split the air, and a humming, blue-white blade of energy sizzled into existence. Akane shied backwards in shock. After a moment the blade disappeared with another snap-hiss. Darlene stared, jaw hanging.

"Was that a ...?"

"Yup. An elegant weapon, from a more civilized age," Bert stated airily, grinning fiendishly. He sighed a moment later. "Don't worry though, I'd never use it on a person, even if they do chop through concrete walls with a wooden sword." Something suddenly beeped audibly in his suit.

"Damn," he muttered, then looked at Akane. "I think you'd better show me that room, quick. I'm five minutes from total shutdown."

"Okay," she agreed. "Follow me." She left the room. Before he followed, Bert looked over at Darlene.

"Since you're the resident magic whiz around here, could you magic up a few clothes for me?" he asked. "I'm not exactly packed for the occasion."

"No problem," Darlene nodded. "Any preferences?"

"Jeans and a sweater, with running shoes. That should about cover it," Bert replied, before squeezing through the door to follow Akane, armor clanking.

"Well whaddaya know?" Darlene quipped from where she was leaning against the corridor wall as Bert re-emerged from the guest room. He was now clad in blue jeans, a dark blue long-sleeved sweater and white sneakers. "There was actually a human being under all that iron!" Akane had a faintly appraising look in her eyes as she looked him over; he was tall and broad across the shoulders, and not exactly unhandsome-looking, either.

"Ceramel."

"Huh?!" Akane and Darlene glanced at each other, confused.

"I don't use iron," Bert explained. "It's too heavy. My armor uses high-impact plastics, polymers and ceramic-metal alloys." Darlene gaped for a moment, then slapped a hand over her face.

"I was joking!" she sighed. "Don't tell me you couldn't tell?!"

"I knew," he replied blandly, amusement flickering briefly in his eyes. "However, watching your jaw drop when I got technical was much more fun."

"You're sure you want to put up with this guy?" Darlene asked Akane again, as they turned to go downstairs. The black-haired girl nodded, grinning.

"He couldn't possibly create more problems than you and Ranma combined," she deadpanned. Bert burst out laughing as Darlene flushed bright red.

"Of course," he noted a moment later with a wicked grin, "I haven't been here that long yet!" They passed the bathroom door, and Darlene ducked inside. Twister re-emerged a moment later. Strangely, he wasn't wet. Bert put it down to magic, even though thinking about 'magic' per se was enough to give him the creeps.

"Hey! Long time no see!" Bert cracked with a grin. "What kept you?"

"Just give it a rest, will you?" Twister asked plaintively. Bert chuckled.

"I'll try," he promised. "But don't expect miracles."

"Well, you're going to have to watch it with the smart remarks around here," Twister informed him. "My sense of humor got me into all kinds of problems the first time I arrived, and from what I can see, your sense of humor is as bad, if not worse, than mine."

"What a horrible thought," Akane commented impishly. "Another person just like Twister." They both started a retort, when Kasumi's voice floated up from the dining room, calling out "Dinner!".

"Aha!" Bert exclaimed, rubbing his hands together. "Methinks I dost hear a summons worthy of being answered!"

"Oh brother..." Twister groaned, looking towards heaven for some kind of guidance as Akane burst out laughing.

"You're one to talk, Twister," said Nabiki as the three entered the dining area and sat down at the table. "I've heard similar things coming from you." She just smiled as a raised eyebrow turned in her direction.

"Do you want me to stop?" Twister said as he leaned a little closer to Nabiki, a slightly mischievous smile on his face. She leaned forward as well.

"Oh, I didn't say that. Merely stating my observations from our close contact." A lazy smile grew as they leaned further.

"Should we get closer? For... more accurate conclusions?" A sigh interrupted the two and they were suddenly reminded where they were. Both straightened, Twister slightly red and Nabiki merely smiling.

"Who's your friend?" she inquired curiously.

"His name's Bert and he...ah...just dropped in," Twister replied.

Bert sighed again, staring off into space with a gloomy expression. "I hope I get back soon. I miss Nene already."

"Nene?!?" Twister cried disbelievingly. "You mean....?" Bert seemed to come back from somewhere infinitely far away as he looked over at him.

"Yes, we're going out. Does that sound so strange?"

"Well...I guess not." Twister shook his head. "It's just that I've been her friend for such a long time... uh..." He cast a suddenly nervous glance at Nabiki who seemed to have lost her amusement; the others were just wondering what he and Bert were talking about.

"I'm dating a different Nene but I guess they should be pretty similar. Um..." Bert looked at Twister, then Nabiki, then Twister again. "Am I missing something?"

"Ah..."

"Yes, I think we are," Nabiki said in a slightly chill and threatening tone of voice. Bert's eyes widened as the light dawned; he'd heard that tone of voice from Nene occasionally. "Just when exactly did you meet this 'Nene', Twister?"

The focus of Nabiki's frosty gaze squirmed a bit. "Ah...that weekend I helped Prof. Miyabi. Sorta."

Inquisitor Nabiki turned to Bert. "And you're from another universe? Like Twister?" He nodded uncertainly and wondered where this was leading.

She faced Twister again, food forgotten. "I remember you once telling me that one could leave a universe for a very long time and come back at almost the same time they left." Bert brightened at that; he wouldn't be worrying the Knight Sabers with a protracted absence.

"Yes... That's true..." This was dragged out reluctantly from Twister.

Nabiki narrowed her eyes. "How long?"

"Nabiki, I was going to tell you..."

"How... long...?" There was steel in her voice now.

"A few, um, years." Everyone gaped at this admission, except Nabiki.

"Why?" She seemed only to be able to speak in one syllable words. Everyone around the table was surprised at her behavior, as this wasn't usual Nabiki style. She seemed quite mad though she kept it well in control.

Twister sighed in resignation. "An accident happened and I was thrown into another universe. I found out my magic was a little off-kilter from what threw me out of this universe so I didn't attempt to return until some time after Sylia, another friend, gave me advice to correct it. Nene and Linna found me when I appeared without my memory, which I got back quickly. I had to stay female most of the time there and making a spell to return on my own wasn't easy in any case." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I guess I felt a little embarrassed when I got back so I didn't say anything."

"How long after you got the advice from this 'Sylia' person did you wait?"

"Several months," Twister admitted slowly, not meeting her eyes. "I just couldn't pack up and leave at the time."

"Why not?"

"Because by then he felt responsible for a lot of what was happening," Bert interrupted quietly as Twister opened his mouth. He cocked his head sideways, regarding Twister with a searching gaze, an expression of complete understanding on his face. "If you were there for a few years," he continued, "long enough to become friends with all of the Knight Sabers, then it follows that you also built yourself a hardsuit and were helping them out from time to time. If I'm not completely out in left field, I'd say your suit was probably patterned after a medieval armor suit, and you were playing the chivalric knight type."

"Is he right?" Nabiki demanded. Twister sighed again.

"Mostly," he conceded. "It's a long story, but I was helping out the Knight Sabers. Quite a bit, actually." His gaze narrowed as he half-glared at Bert. "Just how did you know that?"

"I guessed," Bert admitted calmly. "However, you're looking at another 'noble knight' type. Priss's favorite joke is calling me 'The Knight-in-shining-armor', because that's the way I conduct myself, most of the time. My chivalric ideals were the basis for my SkyKnight designs. I recognized some of your quirks as being similar to mine, and figured that you'd done exactly, more or less, what I did."

"Uh, excuse me?" Ranma interrupted, a slightly stunned expression on his face, an expression mirrored by almost everyone else in the room. "What are you talking about? Who are these 'Knight Sabers' you keep mentioning?" Bert and Twister exchanged a glance; Bert shrugged, and Twister decided to start from his end first. Before he started his tale, Kasumi interrupted.

"You'd better eat before it gets cold," she reminded everyone. Servings were quickly dished out, and Twister got ready to start over again. This time, Bert interrupted.

"Uhh, sorry," he said, red-faced, holding up a pair of chopsticks. "Anybody got a fork?"

Happosai listened carefully from behind the door. He hated not eating one of Kasumi's meals, but since Twister was here that would be a bad idea as the two did not get along for several reasons.

None of them Happosai's fault of course.

It was so frustrating to fight the young whippersnapper. While he seemed to be reluctant to use those mind powers of his in fights, he made Happosai the exception. That he didn't need to come close to the old hentai to beat him senseless or punt him into the sky was a source of endless frustration, and thus his caution.

He could wait for his revenge. Sooner or later, everyone became vulnerable sometime.

He could wait.

But now it was time to collect more panties!


	7. Twisted Path 4.2

"Between the two of you, you've had quite a time," Akane remarked as Bert concluded his story with getting yanked out of a leisurely flight over Mega-Tokyo by some strange energy field. Twister shook his head disbelievingly, but didn't comment. The rest of the Tendo family was pretty much speechless, and Ranma's father looked like he was in the same state. The two different Knight Saber sagas that Twister and Bert had revealed had some basic similarities in the two universes, but diverged sharply at certain key events.

Bert hadn't told them everything, however; he'd left out a few key events that had happened to himself, and the results they'd had on him. At the moment, he didn't trust anyone enough to reveal the fact that he still had a few....problems. Sure, he trusted Twister, at least, he thought he did, but there were some things he just was not going to discuss openly. Bert concealed the brief flash of fury that flashed through him, and he tried hard not to think about Hollister; he'd been doing that way too much lately, even before his current predicament had happened. The last thing he needed right now was to lose control...

"What I can't believe," Ranma spoke up, unknowingly interrupting his line of thought, "is just how much alike you two are. That's scary." SkyKnight's gloomy thoughts receded, and his lurking sense of humor briefly appeared again.

"Be afraid! Be very afraid! You are about to enter a region where time and space as we know it does not exist," Bert intoned sonorously.

"You are about to enter.." Twister continued, glancing at Bert with a crooked grin, as they both chorused, "The Twilight Zone!" A chorus of groans answered them.

Kasumi began clearing the table, and Genma and Soun vanished to somewhere else in the house. Probably so they didn't have to sit looking at the new extra-dimensional traveller, Bert figured glumly, his momentary cheer disappearing. Twister evidently had picked up on his mood shift.

"Hey!" he suddenly exclaimed. "It's a Saturday night, so why don't we go downtown for a while? Maybe see a movie or something."

"I'm broke," Bert replied absently, chin propped on his hand. "Unless they take credit cards from 2034."

"Don't worry," Twister assured him. "Money's no problem. Come on, you can't sit here and brood all night."

"I suppose you're right," he sighed, stiffly unfolding himself from his cushion, and standing up. Several pops sounded from his knee joints and back as he stretched, briefly towering over everything. Everyone else also stood, minus the sound effects.

"You're a walking noisemaker," Twister grinned.

"You get injured so many times that your doctor now lives in a four-car garage, and then we'll see what you sound like," Bert complained.

"I think I'll stay home," Nabiki said with a cool tone, and left the group. Twister didn't move but sadly watched her leave.

"Twister," Akane started to say, "why didn't you..."

"I'd better leave her alone right now," he sighed. "I should've told her about my little trip sooner."

"What movie didya want to go to?" Ranma interrupted, making Akane give him a quick glare.

"I'm not sure," Twister admitted.

"Any Star Wars films playing?" Bert said half-heartedly.

Twister eyed him strangely. "Actually, there's going to be a showing of the Star Wars trilogy at my university in one of the bigger classrooms. Subtitled, of course."

"Really??" An odd, almost insane, light grew in Bert's eyes as he smiled. "Let's go!! Hey..." He frowned. "How far is it? How do we get there?" The other three smiled.

"It's called...the Twister method," grinned the brown-haired young man.

"Huh? What..."

They vanished.

"...do you mea...erk!"

The room had changed from the Tendo residence dining room to a smaller one that had a computer on a desk by one wall. Bert slowly felt a couch that was by another wall, confirmed it was real, and sat on it.

"You can tel...teleport that fast, and other people too?" He said faintly.

"I didn't mention that, did I?" Twister grinned as he looked around. "My roommate isn't around. Hmm. Too bad. He's a nice guy. You'd like him. Actually," he commented, "it's good we came here. Otherwise, we would've either been attacked, or have Ranma shanghaied."

"Shanghaied?" Bert repeated, glancing over at the black-haired, blue-eyed young man. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Never mind," Ranma told him, flushing and glaring briefly at Twister. "It's a long story, and one I'd rather not hear repeated right now."

"Come on," Akane said. "If we want to get to these shows on time, we'd better get going."

"True," Twister grinned. He swept open the room door, grandly proclaiming "Ladies first." Akane swept primly out of the room, stifling a grin. Ranma looked skeptically at the grinning brown-haired young man by the door, but he wisely didn't comment, and followed Akane out. Twister glanced over at Bert, who was still trying to wrap his mind around the 'teleportation' concept. From the look on his face, he wasn't having much luck; he looked like he had acute indigestion.

"Coming?" Twister inquired pointedly. Bert started, then grinned ruefully and ducked out the door. Twister followed, closing and locking the door behind him.

"Hito?"

"Hmm?" Hito looked at his friend who sat beside him. "What is it, Morio?"

"Why are we sitting here watching Star Wars?"

The hentai duo were sitting in the auditorium that was doubling as a theater for the viewing of the trilogy. Having brought their own refreshments they had plenty of food with them. However, they weren't getting into the spirit of things, unlike someone else in the room who was quoting many of lines in very good English.

Hito shrugged. "Because we weren't doing anything else?"

"Exactly!" Morio said triumphantly. "We've lost our energy, our purpose of life! Of late we've been getting less and less enthusiastic about school and our normal social lives."

"Normal?" Hito wondered at that coming from Morio.

"And I know the reason!" Morio stated. "It's because we've not been following our true hentai natures! We haven't done anything worthy of hentai vision in so long we are losing our energy, the blood that flows through our bodies." Abruptly he stood up. "Come on!" he commanded his partner.

"Where are we going?" Hito inquired.

"First, we'll walk into the women's change rooms for the gym; the female volleyball team should be in there tonight and it'll give us a jump-start to fuel our hentai energies."

Hito's heart raced at the thought of it and he realized that Morio was right. It had been too long. "And then?"

"Then we get to work!"

Sitting by Bert, Twister saw two figures leave the room. Hito and Morio he noticed, but gave their departure no significance.

"Once I was the student, now I am the Master," Bert said in a low voice beside him and Darth Vader echoed him a half-second later.

Twister rolled his eyes and forgot about the two.

"We didn't need to see the movies," Twister wryly commented as they left the auditorium. "You're a walking dialogue library by yourself." Bert grinned sheepishly as Akane and Ranma snickered.

"Sorry," he apologized. "I've seen them several dozen times, and I love a lot of the quotes."

"We'd noticed," Akane remarked dryly. Bert flushed again, but didn't reply. They walked through the doors to the outside, Bert and Twister unconsciously sweeping the doors open for Akane.

"Would you two quit that?!" Ranma demanded in exasperation. "It's only Akane!"

"Hey!! A few manners wouldn't hurt you any!" she flared, glaring at him.

"Hold! Cease fire!" Bert intoned, stepping (perhaps unwisely) between them. "Wouldn't you much rather argue in private?" he inquired. They both flushed, and looked away, refusing to look at each other. Twister sighed, looking heavenward. They never learned.

The small group started moving across the campus. It was a fairly scenic locale, with trees and shrubs tastefully arranged in small planters along the paths, and some small park areas interspersed between the buildings. As they walked, Bert looked around, admiring some of the scenery. He wasn't really watching where he was walking, though, and he crashed into someone a moment after Twister, Akane and Ranma all yelled "Look out!"

"Damn it!" he swore under his breath, reeling backwards and gingerly feeling his nose, which had preceded him in the collision. At the same time, he heard a very pompous voice saying, "What stumbling, uncoördinated, benighted knave dares to so rudely collide with Tatewaki Kuno?" Oh shit, part of Bert's mind noted, as he blinked, clearing his watering eyes. Akane stepped between him and the irate, dark brown-haired kendo champion.

"It was an accident, Kuno," she told him. "He's new around, and he didn't..."

"Akane Tendo!" Kuno exclaimed, sweeping her a deep bow. Ranma looked half resigned and half angry at Kuno's predictable behavior; Twister just shook his head. "Truly, this day has brought me unlooked-for pleasures! I had not thought to behold your radiant countenance so soon!"

"Give it a rest, Kuno," she said impatiently. "I've heard it all before."

"Ah, but it bears repeating! I shall trumpet your praises to the heavens," Kuno declared. Striking an impressive pose, he cleared his throat:

"Mine ear is much enamored of thy note;  
So is mine eye enthralled to thy shape..."

"Good God, it's a Shakespeare library on legs," Bert muttered to himself. He suddenly found the business end of a wooden sword, a bokken, under his nose. His eyes crossed as he tried to focus on it.

"And who are you, insolent knave?" Kuno snarled imperiously. "I would have your name before I run you through!"

"His name is Bert," Akane cut in, trying to defuse a suddenly tense situation; Kuno ignored her.

"Know then, knave, that I am Tatewaki Kuno, the ...."

"The Blue Blunderer of Furinkan High," Bert finished flatly for him. The pompous twit standing in front of him, threatening him with a stick had finally ticked him off.. A part of his mind noted that he was still out-of-sorts from being very far from home, and that he really should back off and apologize, but he ignored it. At the moment, the very ugly urge for a fight was prodding him onwards, and his temper was snarling in the back of his mind, driving that urge forwards with implacable intensity.

Ranma and Akane were staring at him like he'd gone insane, wide-eyed, and Twister was only slightly less incredulous. He grabbed Bert's arm, dragging him backwards a step. As he grabbed the red-head's arm, something else flashed across Bert's face, and for a second Twister had a flash of something... a... a feeling of some kind; it wasn't quite prescience, but he'd had the very brief impression that Bert had been about to lash out at him for an instant.

"Are you bloody nuts?!" he hissed, brown-green eyes staring into the similar colored, but defiant, ones of Bert. "You haven't got your suit for one thing, and from what you said, that's your main advantage in a fight! He'll kill you if he connects with that sword; you're not as damage resistant as everyone else here is!"

"If he be too cowardly to accept my challenge," Kuno's voice declared from behind them, "I will accept a sincere apology for his boorishness." Oh no, Twister groaned, as he watched Bert's gaze turn as hard as flint chips at Kuno's words; Kuno apparently couldn't have found a worse word to use on Bert than 'cowardly', even if he'd searched for years. Spinning towards the black-haired young man in the kendo outfit, Bert jerked his arm free of Twister's grip, and stepped past Akane, coming almost nose-to-nose with the irate swordsman. Kuno had to look up slightly to meet the red-haired young man's fiery gaze.

"Okay, Mr. Pompous Ass," Bert replied tightly, clenching his fists. "You're on; I accept your challenge."

"Excellent! Prepare to defend yourself!" Kuno leaped backwards, his sword coming to the 'en guarde' position. Bert shifted his feet, hands open, and arms down slightly. Ranma sighed and turned away, shaking his head; in his opinion, the fight was already over. Akane stood watching, wide-eyed, and trying to decide if she should step in. Twister was in a similar bind; he couldn't use magic in his current form, and he didn't want to openly flash his psionics in public; some passers-by were stopping to watch. He could possibly slip Bert some unnoticed TK 'assistance', but he hadn't tried that too often.

Kuno leaped forward, the air in front of him becoming a blur of flickering wooden sword blades. Bert ducked a few, but not all of the strikes; several sharp cracks echoed along the sidewalk, and a pained look flashed across his face briefly. Kuno retreated for a moment, looking surprised that his foe was still standing. Bert's gaze was now very angry, and the air around him suddenly seemed to smolder.

Twister blinked, shaking his head. When he looked closer he realized the air around Bert was shifting. He took a quick glance at Ranma and Akane, but they hadn't seemed to notice anything amiss. He looked back at the embattled young man, trying to figure out what was going on.

Somewhere across the city, a futuristic armor suit with silver-and-blue armor plating stood quietly in the corner of a room, as if on sentry duty. Kasumi finished dusting off the now-gleaming suit, shaking her head at the strange things Twister occasionally brought inside. She gathered up her cleaning stuff, and left the room, missing completely the strange, faint purple glow that began to outline the suit.

Crack!

Twister winced again as Kuno's sword slapped Bert's ribs. He couldn't possibly see how the red-head could stand getting hit so many times, and not have collapsed yet. He also hadn't figured out just what was wrong with him; he was still seeing some kind of disturbance around Bert. As Twister stared harder, it suddenly seemed to him that he could discern purple flashes in the disturbance. Purple... Magic flashes?! How in the...?!

Kuno leaped forwards again, sword blurring mercilessly through the air, but this time he was in for a surprise.

Moving with a swiftness born out of pure, white-hot fury, his red-haired opponent ducked inside the swing and clocked Kuno square in the bottom of the jaw with an uppercut. Kuno's head snapped back, and his attack faltered. Bert seized his wrist with his left hand, and hoisted the kendo champ off of his feet by the shirtfront with his other hand. With some kind of a spinning throw, he jerked Kuno into the air and slam-dunked him into the mouth of a nearby garbage can. Kuno lost his grip on his sword, and it clattered to the pavement. Two long legs were all that could be seen of the offended kendo practitioner, sticking ludicrously out of the garbage bin.

"Screwball in the corner pocket," Bert declared, putting his hands on his knees, gasping, with his head hanging. His face became slightly more relaxed, the boiling rage that had been fuelling him apparently gone. "I think that counts as a win." In Twister's sight, the disturbance around the tall red-head vanished. Maybe he'd been hallucinating. The only problem was that he didn't get that sick as a rule. He walked over to the doubled-over young man, Akane following. Ranma was standing, staring slack-jawed and speechless at Kuno, or what could be seen of him anyway.

"Hey, are you all right?" Akane asked worriedly. "Didn't those hits hurt?"

"They do now," he assured her from between clenched teeth, sweating. "They didn't at the time; adrenaline is a marvellous thing." A pained smile flickered across his face.

"Very. Hold still," Twister sighed, reaching out and grasping Bert's shoulder. "They shouldn't hurt for much longer." He closed his eyes, concentrating on Healing his new friend. A moment later, his eyes flew open in shock.

"It's not working!" he exclaimed. "I can't seem to get it to affect you!!"

"Huh?!?" chorused Akane and Ranma.

"Then, perhaps could you get me to a doctor?" Bert asked, his tone a little too calm, as he wrapped his arms over his much-abused chest, wincing as he accidentally hit one of the many sore spots.

"Where's the nearest doctor, Twister?" Akane asked as she worriedly looked at the occasionally gasping Bert.

Still very surprised over his inability to Heal Bert, Twister muttered to himself. "Why would I not be able to..." He snapped out of his musings. "Oh! Right! Doctor! Hmm. The only one I know of is Doctor Tofu. I passed by his clinic once so I guess I should teleport us near there."

"Please do," Bert groaned out, not concerned about teleporting at the moment as his body screaming its displeasure had captured most of his immediate attention.

"Let's get to a place where I can take us without being seen." Being the next tallest after Bert, Ranma and Twister supported Bert as Akane scouted ahead for a suitable place to teleport.

"One positive note," Twister suddenly chuckled.

Bert looked over at him with pain-filled eyes. "What could be positive about this??"

"Oh, not your duel with Kuno. No, I was referring to the fact that Akane hasn't punted Ranma across town yet. It's a miracle!"

"Hey!" Ranma glared at Twister, who gazed back with amusement.

Bert was shaking... with painful laughter. "Please...don't. My ribs hurt too much now. Please. Not now."

"Did you hear the one...." Twister stopped with a grin when he saw Bert glaring up at him with a look that promised dire consequences if he continued.

"Just kidding," Twister grinned, shrugging in mock innocence.

From his inverted vantage point, the once-again conscious Kuno watched them walk away.

"We shall meet again, vile ally of Ranma Saotome. Did you truly think I would miss the foul stench of your sorcery that enabled you to defeat I, Tatewaki Kuno, he who was the Blue Thunder of Furinkan High? The next time I see your evil face both you and the vile captor of the pig-tailed one shall fall before me. Ahhahahahahahahaha!!!!"

Suddenly, a group of students came by and, ignoring him completely, filled the rest of the can with garbage, concealing Kuno's face and most of his body.

That evening had Twister and Bert sitting in the psionicist's apartment near the university. They were here because of Nabiki's still rather frigid demeanor, and Twister felt it was safer here. Despite his new friend's nervous protests, they teleported into the living room area. Bert's upper torso was now wrapped in bandages but he seemed rather cheerful after getting over his reaction to the teleport, considering. He rotated a shoulder.

"That Dr. Tofu is something else. I felt like he was killing me there for a second, but now I feel great! Aside from the ribs that is."

"Be very, very thankful Kasumi didn't show up," Twister advised. At Bert's inquiring glance, he shuddered a bit. "Trust me, you don't want to know."

Dubious, Bert let it go. "Ooookay. What was that you tried to do for me after the fight? Heal me, you said?"

Twister frowned. "Yes. I can Heal myself fairly easily for broken bones or skin and doing it for someone else is much harder. But," he emphasized the word, "I couldn't, for the life of me, Heal you. My power just...couldn't affect you. I could see what was wrong, but I couldn't do a thing about it."

Bert had a skeptical expression on his face. "How do you explain being able to teleport me then?"

"I think I don't affect you, really, but just bending space/time so that..."

"Stop!! I don't think I wanna hear it!!" Bert ordered, holding up a hand, his face abruptly looking like he was holding back panic. "Do you think this might present a problem in getting me back?"

"I'd like to know how this happened first, even though I have this sinking feeling I do. Unless you know of anything else psionic or magical that might account for this."

"Oh, sure, I deal with that kind of stuff every day....not!" Bert took a deep breath and exhaled it. "Let me guess: that mighty bolt-o-purple-power of yours that dragged me here?"

"I did seem to see flashes of purple around you when you fought Kuno," Twister admitted, reluctantly.

Bert was wide-eyed at that information. "Flashes...? What else do you think happened to me?!?"

Twister sighed. "Not a clue. It was Wild Magic that hit you. Which, by definition..."

"Translation: You don't know," Bert interrupted.

"Correct."

"Swell," Bert sighed, rubbing a hand over his face tiredly. "Marvellous, even."

"Come on," Twister retorted defensively. "You don't know everything about hardsuits and Boomers, do you?"

"No," Bert admitted. "Sylia's still the resident genius in that department. I've got a boatload of innovative ideas that I use for the suits, but any real scientific advances in some of the tech areas belong strictly to her."

"Well then?"

"All right, I'm sorry. I'm just...I just feel disjointed, I guess. Universe-hopping must have its own form of jet-lag." Silence fell for a few moments. Bert leaned back on the couch, folding his arms behind his head.

"Something I meant to ask you about," Twister said hesitantly. At Bert's nod, he continued. "When Dr. Tofu was examining you, I noticed you've got some pretty good scars there. How did you get those?" The scars in question had been four diagonal lines across his chest, slanting downwards from right to left.

"Ambush," Bert replied shortly, swallowing as a pained, far-away look of remembrance flashed across his face. "My SkyKnight escapades had attracted the attention of some rather unscrupulous people with access to Doberman Boomers. I got attacked before I even knew what the hell was going on." His hand scrubbed at his ribs in a vaguely-remembered gesture. "I only survived because the rest of the Knight Sabers were able to show up and pull my bacon out of the fire." He shook his head suddenly. "God, seems like decades ago now. I still get nightmares occasionally about that sort of stuff. Anyhow, it brought home a few realities about the heroing business, and I've tried to be reasonably careful since then."

"Could've fooled me," Twister noted. "Challenging Kuno wasn't exactly what I'd call being careful."

"Occasionally I backslide a bit," Bert conceded blandly. "Besides, I don't think it hurt Kuno any to learn a little humility, or manners for that matter."

"He may have gotten the message," Twister grinned, "but I wouldn't bet on it."

"I'll worry about that later, after my ribs have quit complaining that is."

"I guess fighting Kuno wasn't all it cracked up to be, was it?"

"Don't," Bert warned with a glare. "No jokes, please. I'd hate to have to strangle someone who's trying to help me out." Twister grinned, then looked at the clock.

"Well, I guess you can bunk on the couch tonight," he said. "I'm a little low on energy to teleport us back to the dojo right now so I'll phone Kasumi not to expect us. I can give you a tour of the university tomorrow. It's the weekend so we have plenty of time."

"Sounds okay," Bert replied. "I just hope nothing eventful happens tomorrow; I've had enough excitement for now."

Professor Miyabi Kitamura sat back in her desk chair, frowning. She'd earlier sensed some kind of a magic flare nearby, and had unsuccessfully tried to track down the source. It had been highly unstable, and she wanted to find what the source was in the eventuality that it presented a danger to the campus. At the same time, the magic had seemed familiar somehow. Shrugging mentally, she turned her attention back to trying to locate the source of the erratic emissions again.

"Hey! Who're you?" a surprised voice asked.

Bert stopped his preparations upon the couch and turned around to look at a rather confused, black-haired young man with a short hair cut who was staring at him.

"Oh, hi there. Well, uh, I...."

Twister stepped out of his room at the sound of the voice and smiled apologetically. "Sorry, Yasuro, my friend here needs to use the couch tonight and you weren't here so..."

Yasuro shrugged. "I don't mind."

Bert stepped up to the new arrival and stuck out a hand. "Name's Bert, and you're Yasuro?"

The hand was accepted. "Yes. Nice to meet you." Yasuro's expression was one of curiosity. "When did you meet Twister?"

"I..." Bert started.

"After he came to this universe," Twister interrupted. At Bert's surprised glare, he shrugged. "He knows about me already and it'll make things easier."

With new interest Yasuro looked at Bert. "So you're like Twister?"

"No!!!" Bert shouted, then grinned a little at the other's slightly hurt expression. "Sorry there. I don't change into a cute red-head and I don't do psionics or magic." Under his breath he muttered, "Not yet, at least, the way things are going."

"No, he's just someone who usually flies around in high-tech armor battling cyberdroids," Twister retorted.

"You did a variation of the same theme for a few years too," Bert shot back, "and doing exactly the same thing and brought me here."

"Peace!" Yasuro held up a hand before the two could argue further. Interested from the mentioning of the word 'high-tech' he looked at Twister. "You mentioned something about going to and coming back from another universe last weekend, but you never said it was a high-tech world and," he peered closely at Twister, "for a few years? You haven't changed at all from what I can tell."

Bert blinked. "He hasn't?" Having just met Twister he wouldn't have been able to tell, but it would explain how he had gotten away with not having to tell anyone about the long trip he had made. Bert himself was certainly feeling the effects of Father Time from all his injuries, although they hadn't been bothering him quite as much lately.

"You know I have a funny metabolism," Twister uncomfortably said.

"But to not age, Twister??"

"I am aging. Just...very, very slowly."

"How slow?" Bert curiously asked.

Twister sighed. "About a day for a period of one to two years."

Yasuro and Bert gaped. Stuttering, Bert got out, "That's around a lifespan of forty thousand years!!"

"About right." Then, muttering below his breath, Twister said quietly, "I wish."

"Considering all the universe hopping you seem to go through, that almost seems reasonable," Yasuro commented. Bert just continued to stare at the now-grinning Twister.

"With all the things I've faced I'm surprised I've lived this long." He shrugged. "Oh, well. You win some, you lose some."

Bert shook his head. "I suppose I really should have expected this. Somehow." He looked at the calm Yasuro. "You seem pretty blase about this."

"With all he's told me, that's the least startling thing." Yasuro started ticking off fingers. "An arch-demon of Hell, iron golem of an angry magess, spirit dragon wanting to take over everything..." He shrugged. "The longer lifespan is tame in comparison."

Twister grinned at Bert's suddenly blank look. "Gee, Brain, what do you wanna do tonight?"

Bert shook his head, appeared to try to figure something out, shook his head again, and then flung his hands over his head in a 'I give up already' gesture, saying, "The same thing we do every night, Pinky, try to get some sleep." So saying, he dropped onto the couch and closed his eyes, trying to block out the world around him.

"I don't think that's quite right, Bert," Twister grinned.

"Tonight, it is. Good night, Twister."

"Okay." Chuckling for some reason, Twister walked to his room, saying, "Don't stay up too late, Yasuro. Good night."

Bert wondered what Twister had meant by that until the rapid tapping of someone using a keyboard began echoing throughout the room. Apparently, Yasuro used the computer in the room often and late at night.

"When do you plan on quitting?" Bert mumbled.

"Oh, maybe three or four. I don't need much sleep."

It was midnight right now. Which meant three to four hours of constant tapping. *Oh God!! Japanese keyboard torture!!* Bert mentally wailed, but did his best to try to fall asleep.

"Try? There is no try. Only do; or do not," Yoda's voice prodded him from the depths of his imagination. Bert sighed; the Dark Side was winning at the moment.  
The next day ....

"Good morning!" Twister grinned cheerily. A bleary-eyed, smoldering glare from across the table was aimed at him.

"And just what is supposed to be good about it?" Bert growled. "My ribs feel like they've been used as tackling targets, and I got maybe four hours of sleep, tops, thanks to your Doom-crazed friend. I managed to restrain myself from killing him, though." He poured another cup of tea from the pot sitting in front of him, plopping a generous spoonful of sugar and dollop of milk into it. He quickly stirred it together, and proceeded to drain the mug at one draught. He repeated the process a couple of more times as Twister incredulously watched. Bert's mood began to visibly lighten and smooth out as the booster shots of caffeine began to take effect.

"Um, yeah," Twister said, shaking his head at the pace with which the tea was disappearing. "Bodies in the apartment are a little hard to explain, Chiun. You like tea, don't you?"

"Coffee gives me heartburn," Bert replied obliquely, slowly inhaling another mugful. "I usually need a gallon or so of tea in the mornings to at least look civil."

"You sound like some of the people here at the university. Some of them think caffeine is one of the essential nutrients for a healthy life."

"I know what that's like; I was in university for five years, and some of the habits, or addictions, you never lose." Silence fell for a moment. Finally, Bert straightened up with a sigh. "So what's on the tour itinerary for today, O wise and enlightened one?"

"Breakfast first," Twister replied. His stomach suddenly and loudly snarled in agreement. He grinned sheepishly, flushing. "A large one."

"Lay on MacDuff," Bert grinned back. "Let's chow down before we fall down."

Yasuro was in Hito and Morio's room, mostly because Bert had seemed to not enjoy being kept awake most of the night; the restrained but murderous look the tall red-head had given him that morning could have sizzled steel armor plating. Twister might be able to handle it, but himself...

It was a good thing he had come over, though. After being fairly inactive for the past month or so, his hentai friends now seemed eager to make up for wasted time. All sorts of test tubes belonging to Morio were set up around the room and Hito had created several circuit diagrams, some remarkably complex, which were located both on the floor and taped to the walls.

"You know," a bemused Yasuro observed, "if you guys put as much effort into school as you do with your...hobby, you would both have A+ averages."

From where he was writing chemical equations, Morio waved away the comment. "No challenge. And the rewards aren't nearly as fun."

"Getting slapped by women?"

"That's failure," Morio corrected him.

Looking around, Yasuro noted the absence of his other friend. "Where's Hito anyhow?"

Morio smiled. "He needed some parts so he went out to visit his parent's company."

"Oh." Yasuro shook his head. "I still can't believe they don't do anything about his hobby. Yours either," he said to Morio.

"Well, they are busy most of the time, and the fact that we occasionally make something either chemically or in electronics that's valuable enough that they can use it in their companies and make money off of it could have something to do with it," Morio noted with a grin.

"That could be it," Yasuro said with a resigned sigh.

"This is a fairly nice place," Bert remarked as he and Twister strolled across one of the playing fields near the Athletics Complex. Twister nodded.

"Yeah, it's a good place," he agreed. "It's kinda quiet right now, but during the week it really hums at times."

"Yeah? Major or Minor scale?" Bert asked interestedly. Twister winced, and decided not to dignify the joke with a reply.

They walked along for a few more minutes, Twister occasionally pointing out other things of interest. A small group of young men suddenly appeared in the distance, heading towards them. Bert hadn't really noticed, and Twister himself only gave them a cursory look. It was when one of them shouted "Hey, there he is!!" and started charging towards the pair of young men, being followed by the rest of the pack, that Twister realized he did know them once he got a better look: it was that Phys Ed group, evidently still seeking to avenge the loss of the eating contest a while back. They'd evidently recovered from their earlier defeat, and had worked up the courage to try him again.

"Friends of yours?" Bert calmly asked, surveying the howling mob.

"Distant acquaintances," Twister corrected him, "unfortunately, not nearly distant enough to suit me."

"We're gonna get you!!!" the lead athlete howled. "You and your friend!!"

"Hey wait a minute!!" Bert yelled, stepping back and pointing at Twister. "Attack him, not me!! I'm innocent, whatever it was!!"

"Oh, thanks a lot...ooooff!" Twister's breath whooshed out as one of the charging group tackled him, bowling him over, surprised. Idiot, he briefly berated himself, keep your mind on your opponents! He worked at prying himself loose and getting room to maneuver for some martial arts as he watched Bert dodge around some of the other young men trying to grab him.

"Now look here, guys," Bert panted, ducking sideways. "I'm new here!! I don't know what your beef is, but I'm not involved!! Let's just call it quits, okay? Aaaargh!!!" A large person with a linebacker build suddenly slammed into the tall red-head, just as Twister succeeded in belting his current opponent into the middle of the next week.

Twister quickly ducked, back-flipped and swept the legs out from under another boy as he watched a second wave of irate athletes swarm over Bert. He tried to go to the assistance of his friend, but was prevented by a couple more of the athletically-inclined leaping at him. Twister helped one continue on his journey, introducing him to the nearby fencepost, while ducking the other one's wild karate-chop. As he prepared to give the creep an express trip to the twilight zone, something flashed at the edges of his sight, a purple something that began to get brighter.

Booooom!!!!!!

Professor Miyabi jerked back from her desk, reeling in pain at the thunderclap that had just assaulted her magical senses. Scraping together her scattered wits, she began trying to concentrate on teleporting herself to the general area where the erratic magical emission she'd earlier detected had apparently turned critical and blown up. She hoped that no one had been nearby; in a blast of that scale, someone was bound to get hurt.

Twister shook his head, trying to clear the dancing spots from his eyes and the ringing from his ears. Around him on the field, some of the Phys Ed team was laying unconscious from his attacks; the rest were scattered widely outwards in a circular pattern from where the explosive blast had come from. He still couldn't quite see what was going on.

"They shouldn't have pissed me off," a deep, electronically modulated voice stated from off to his left. Vision clearing, Twister looked over to see a towering, silver-and-blue armor suit standing, flexing its gauntleted hands. A burning red eyeslot surveyed the prone and unmoving forms. Twister's jaw hit the ground in disbelief, although dawning comprehension of what had just happened began to flicker.

"Uh, Bert?" he queried cautiously. "Are you sure you're all right?"

"Yeah, why wouldn't I be?" SkyKnight retorted, waving a hand irritably. "I.....oh sheeee-it," he said, finally noticing his armor-clad state as he stared first at his hands, and then down at the rest of himself.. "What the hell is going on, for God's sake?!?! How the hell did this get here?!? My hardsuit can't teleport!! What...why..?" SkyKnight's voice trailed off in utter confusion. Twister was about to reply, when an authoritative woman's voice cut across the field of scattered bodies.

"All right, hold it right there!" Twister and SkyKnight swung around to see an older woman come charging across the playing field nearby, a very angry expression on her face.

"Hi, Professor!" Twister grinned weakly, trying unsuccessfully to look innocent. "What brings you here?"

She was furious at seeing him. "Twister! What in all magic's incantations are you doing?! Is this yours?" Miyabi jabbed a finger at SkyKnight.

"Well, in a way..."

"Hey!" shouted SkyKnight, still a little angry from the attack. "I am not a thing!!"

His objection startled her. "Is it human?"

"I think many people are still trying to determine that, Professor," Twister replied with a straight face, losing a brief skirmish with his sense of humor yet again.

"Hey!!" the armored battlesuit involuntarily let loose a laser bolt near one of Twister's feet at the remark as its gauntlets clenched into fists. It took a step towards Twister as the debris from the resultant ground explosion bounced of an invisible shield; the young psionicist had been expecting a reaction of some kind. "I object to that slander!!"

"I was just kidding, Bert," Twister tried soothing him. When he didn't get a response, he curiously said, "Bert?" Still nothing. Now he was getting concerned. "Hey, are you all right?"

"Twister," Miyabi ominously said, reminding him of her presence. "I'm holding your ... acquaintance with a spell to keep him from doing any more damage."

"That's not going to improve his temper."

"Too bad. He can wait. Now, I hope I do not have to repeat myself a third time so ... what is going on here?" She flicked back her long, black hair and gazed narrowly at her student with her dark green eyes.

Twister looked around at the now-groaning students. "Uh...maybe we'd better do this somewhere less...conspicuous?"

Miyabi had to concede that point, and nodded. "Very well. Teleport all three of us to the classroom. It will be empty there."

Sighing, Twister complied and they vanished without a sound.

Wide-eyed, Hito watched them vanish. He had happened by when the fight had started but had wisely kept out of sight, knowing his fighting skill was next to nonexistent. Evading, yes. Fighting, no. Anyhow, he knew Twister had beaten the group before and seemed quite capable of doing it again from the looks of things. The tall fellow wasn't familiar, but appeared to be with Twister.

Then the suit came.

Hito's eyes almost bugged from their sockets once he saw that powerful exoskeleton. It was a thing of beauty to his engineering eyes! True, he was mostly into electronics, but he had forayed into mechanical systems with great success. But the suit was lightyears ahead from anything Hito had ever seen.

He saw it had weapons, but nothing like he had ever seen before save in sci-fi flicks. Energy weapons maybe? Miyabi's arrival didn't even impinge on his awareness.

Until they all disappeared.

He almost leapt to where the suit had been but stopped himself. Thinking clearly again, he realized Twister must have teleported them away. Hito knew his friend had psi-powers but didn't often see him use them. Did he make the suit?

He sighed; he didn't know enough to make any guesses. But he did know one thing; he would be watching for an opportunity to see that suit again.

Right now he had to get back to Morio.

They had lots of hentai stuff to do yet.

"You did what?!?"

Bert winced at the volume Miyabi put into the last word of the shout. His helmet was off and laying nearby on the floor where he had awkwardly managed to sit down. It had taken Twister a few minutes to convince Miyabi to release him and another few to calm the furious Knight Saber-errant down. Now Twister was explaining Bert's presence to his magic-teaching Professor.

Twister's face had an uncomfortable, pained expression on it. "I had gone insane after becoming enraged in female form and taking in an enormous amount of magical energy from the Event. Got rid of it to become sane again, but somehow it homed in on SkyKnight and brought him here."

"You...you..." Miyabi put her hands on her forehead in frustration. "The sheer joy of having such a powerful magic-user as one of my students." She then placed her hands on the classroom desk and looked at him in a way that made him want to plead innocent. "What else, besides producing a magical disturbance equivalent to a sonic boom when teleporting his armor to himself, has he done?"

Twister shrugged. "The only other thing is that I can't seem to affect him with my telekinesis...unless swallowing enough tea to wake up Rip Van Winkle counts, which," seeing Bert's glare on him, he concluded, "I guess doesn't."

"I very much doubt those will be the only effects that massive blast of wild magic will produce." Now she directed her attention totally on Bert, who felt that there was some uncanny resemblance in her manner to Sylia's. "Being as powerful as he is when female, the amount of energy to drive him temporarily insane, even unprepared," she cast a glare on Twister before turning back, "is enormous. I'm not sure how much of it was expended in crossing the Void and bringing you here, but I am fairly certain that it would have affected both you and that futuristic piece of armor you now wear." She rubbed her forehead in memory. "That was definitely proven when you called for your armor and it came."

"But I didn't call it," protested Bert.

"If you've worn it for a long time, then you likely desired it unconsciously, especially when you were angry and being attacked."

While Bert pondered that, Twister nodded. "Yes, it almost happened when you were fighting Kuno."

The hardsuited red-head looked up with a grin. "That certainly would have surprised the pompous bastard," he chuckled, Twister agreeing with a wide smile. Looking down at himself, Bert sighed. "I guess I'd better get this off."

"I suggest leaving it at my house," Miyabi interjected. When Bert and Twister looked at her in surprise, she explained. "Studying the armor may give me an idea of whether or not the effects are permanent and what other properties it may have. The results of such an uncontrolled enchantment..." She shook her head. "In any case, I highly recommend you, Bert, staying near the University when not in Twister's vicinity in case something...unpleasant begins to manifest so I can help you, if I can."

"You know, that makes me feel so much better," Bert said sarcastically and not without a little uneasiness.

"I'm sorry, Bert." Twister looked kind of low as he was responsible for Bert's predicament in the first place.

Trying to cheer them both up, Bert shrugged. "Shit happens. Besides, when I get back I'll certainly have a story to tell the others. Whether or not they'll believe me is the question." Something occurred to him then. "Hey, I wonder where my clothes went?! I'm just wearing my softsuit under the hardware, and that isn't exactly presentable dinner attire."

"They're probably back at the dojo; that's where your suit was." Twister's eyes suddenly widened. "Uh, oh. There was quite an explosion when it arrived, but when it left..."

"Oh, boy. You might be right."

Miyabi spoke up. "I suggest you two make sure everything is all right before dropping off the armor at my house."

"Want a lift?" Twister inquired. The professor merely smiled as a corkscrew of bright light suddenly swirled up from her feet, enveloped her completely, and then vanished, along with the magic teacher.

"That's even more disturbing than the psionic method," commented a wide-eyed Bert.

Twister grinned. "We'd better be certain though." He waited until Bert's suddenly panic-filled eyes saw his grin before he teleported them away to the dojo.

They arrived at a scene reminiscent of 'Gone with the Wind'; everything in the room that hadn't been tied down had been blown around as if by a small tornado, all of it finally landing in a heap in the far corner. It took Bert's mind off their disturbing means of arrival.

"Oy vey," SkyKnight observed, looking around; he'd slapped his helmet back on after arriving from force of habit. "It does look a little messy now, doesn't it?"

"You can say that again," Twister agreed, staring at the mess.

"Okay. It does look a little messy now, doesn't it?" he repeated, chuckling when Twister's elbow smacked into his armor plating.

"Ow! Jeez, that tin suit's hard!" he briefly complained, rubbing his elbow.

"Wouldn't be much good if it was soft, now would it? Well, I guess we'd better clean this up."

"Hold on; I've got a faster way," Twister instructed. He frowned in concentration, and all the dislodged items like strangely unbroken vases, towels, spare clothes and such lifted into the air and floated over to their proper locations, settling down without a bump.

"Neat trick," SkyKnight observed. With a sigh, he clanked over to the pile of now folded clothes, and dug out a clean set, tucking them under an arm.

"Got a duffle bag?" he inquired. Twister nodded, puzzled for a moment.

"Sure, but what for?"

"Something to carry my clothes in while I fly back to that professor's house."

"You don't have to do that," Twister said. "I can teleport it there and...."

"Sorry, but not this time. I've got something I've got to check out first on the suit, and doing it myself is the only way. I'll come back here after dropping it off, and then we can decide just what to do next."

"Okay," Twister conceded reluctantly. "You sure you know how to get back here?"

"Trust me," SkyKnight assured him. "I know what I'm doing." A few minutes later, they stood in the backyard of the Tendo house. Incredibly enough, no one was around or seemed to have noticed the disturbance in the bedroom from earlier. Probably because the household was almost always going nuts, Bert figured sardonically, slinging the nylon rucksack securely over an armored shoulder. He looked over at the young brown-haired man standing next to him. Twister looked vaguely unhappy about something, but wasn't saying much.

"I guess I'll see you later," he said. With that, flight wings snapped out into extension on his suit's shoulders, and SkyKnight shot airborne with a screaming roar of jet turbines. Twister watched the silver-clad figure vanish into the blue sky overhead.

"I am not going to panic. I am not going to panic," SkyKnight snarled to himself over and over again as he hurtled through the air on defiantly howling jet turbines. He felt like he was just barely keeping from dropping off of the thin edge of what he considered his sanity at the moment. The initial disorientation of being transported to another dimension had been bad, but that was nothing compared to what he'd been through lately. For someone who put complete faith in science and logic, having to suddenly confront magic, something he'd never really put much stock into and not quantifiable by scientific thinking, was bordering on terrifying. That he'd somehow been altered by the aforementioned magic was not helping to ease his mind any. He felt completely powerless, vulnerable to anything and everything, and he didn't like it.

What was worse was that the stress was eroding his self-control on the rest of his actions. Several times he'd had to throttle down the reflex retaliation that had plagued him almost constantly a few weeks ago. He hoped Twister hadn't noticed, but he'd very nearly struck out with lethal force when he'd been swarmed. It was a miracle that he hadn't injured someone when his suit had arrived.

For several minutes, the silver-and-blue garbed hardsuit zipped across the skyline of the city, trying to lose himself in his usual high-speed flying thrills, but it didn't work as well as it had in the past. He stifled the sulphurous swear words that came to mind, and began tracking through the skies towards the sprawling university campus, following the directions Twister had given him.

Professor Miyabi almost fell out of her chair in shock as SkyKnight rocketed through the open bay window of her study, slamming to an abrupt halt in mid-air and dropping heavily to the floor in front of her desk with a blast from snarling jet thrusters, all in perfectly timed precision. She recovered her composure, and her suddenly scattered paperwork, giving the armor-clad young man a withering glare. She couldn't tell whether or not he'd been affected by it because his helmet visor was down.

"I don't suppose you've heard of using the front door?" she asked acidly.

"I have," his electronically modulated voice replied, "but that's also just a little too conspicuous, especially given my current state of dress."

"Oh, I see," she returned sarcastically. "And blasting through someone's front window isn't?!"

"I was moving too fast for visual ID," he replied calmly. "Trust me. Now where did you want me to put my suit?"

"In the next room, over by the lamp." She sat back, green eyes suddenly thoughtful, and curious. "What will you be doing during the week?"

"I haven't got the faintest idea," SkyKnight replied, shrugging. "Alternating between frustration and boredom probably."

"Hmmm. I have a partial solution to the boredom problem. In order for me to fully ascertain what has happened to you, I'll need to have you present for some of the testing of your suit. I can get word to you which days I'll be testing it, and then you can drop by."

"Joy," SkyKnight replied in a flat tone. Miyabi frowned.

"You don't sound overly happy," she observed.

"If it gets me home, then I'm happy. Excuse me for a moment." Miyabi watched the silver suit disappear into the next room. Some metallic clacks and pneumatic hisses sounded, then a few minutes of silence. After a few more minutes a long-faced, red-haired young man re-appeared, and she regarded him thoughtfully. He was taller than Twister, a little heavier across the shoulders, and had similar colored eyes. There was an air of barely-concealed nervous agitation and tension about him. She stood up as he came back into her study, sighing and looking over at him.

"Okay," she said. "I'll transport you back to...."

"No!!" he almost shouted, a sudden, absolutely panic-stricken look flashing across his face. "I'll walk!! It's not a problem!!" With that, he dove past her, down the stairs, and out the front door. She caught a glimpse of him running hard up the street as she heard the front door bang closed.

"Now what was that all about?!" she wondered aloud. "Was it something I said?!"  
Part Two - Sky's the Limit!

Twister absently looked around the room where SkyKnight's armor once stood to make sure he had put everything back the way it should be. Still, Bert's dilemma bothered him. It didn't seem like the person from another universe of Knight Sabers was handling the concept of magic and teleportation very well.

"Why should it?" he sighed out loud. "Both, in a way, dragged him away from home and friends and affected him in ways unknown. Not as severe as my own changes, but still..."

"Talking to yourself, Twister?"

Whirling around, Twister saw Nabiki standing in the doorway of the room and seemingly calm as well.

"As long as I don't answer myself I should be okay." Not yet willing to talk about his 'little' trip in detail to her, Twister tried to change the subject. "Where is everyone? The house was empty."

"Kasumi and Akane went shopping together since Akane wants to cook tonight. The rest...well, you know what their reaction would be after Akane told them she would be cooking," she said with a half-smirk.

"Run for the hills!" Twister jokingly said.

"Right. And if you think trying to get me to think of something else other than your little 'jaunt' will work you are sorely mistaken." Seeing Twister's face fall a little, her humor vanished as she walked up to him and stared up into his face with a mixture of anger and disappointment. Nabiki rarely let her emotions show often so it was a measure of how much he had distressed her that she now did so. "Why didn't you tell me?!"

Twister looked away from her face. "I just got back last weekend, Nabiki! Finally getting back was mixed with half relief and half...sadness. I'd gotten to know a few good friends there, but I missed being here and...you." That last brought a smile from Nabiki that lifted Twister's heart. "There were a few complications..." He stopped when Nabiki dragged his unresisting head down for a long kiss.

Disengaging, they looked at each other for a while before Nabiki nodded with a mischievous smile. "Seeing as you're not hurt, I'll forgive you..."

"My Lady is gracious."

"...and you can also tell me about all that advanced technology you and that Bert guy told us about."

"My Lady is greedy."

"Comes with the package," she said with a smirk.

"I wouldn't change you a bit."

"Who said you had a choice?"

Twister gave up; he was losing the battle to Nabiki's superior comebacks. Instead, he just smiled down at her while she waited for his next remark. She started melting as his calm, smiling, brown-green eyes looked into her own. They reflected a more experienced soul to Nabiki as she gazed into them, definitely a positive result of his trip. She shook her head; this was making it too easy for him.

She stepped back out of his arms. "Oh no, buster. You don't win that easily."

Twister grinned. "It was worth a try."

A little more bold too, Nabiki thought. A definite improvement.

A shouting from downstairs surprised them. "Hey! Where is everyone?! Is this because I'm cooking lunch?!? Raaaanma! You better be here!"

"Now, Akane, I'm sure they just stepped out for some fresh air," Kasumi's ever-innocent voice said.

Nabiki rolled her eyes while Twister grinned at her expression. "Sometimes, Akane..." she said with some exasperation.

He wagged a finger in front of her. "Practice makes perfect."

"Yes, but a perfect what?" Nabiki shrugged. "Oh, well. I guess we should...attempt to try whatever it is she makes. If it looks edible, that is."

At least it'll take my mind off Bert's problem, for a little while, Twister thought before waving Nabiki forward. "After you," he chuckled, bowing with a flourish.

Nabiki's look was somewhat sour as they left the room. "Somehow, I fail to see the chivalry now..."

Akane anxiously looked on at the dinner table where Nabiki and Twister sat. Why weren't they eating? They just stared at what she had made.

"Is... is there something wrong?" she nervously asked. She'd worked so hard on it and had insisted that she do it all by herself.

Nabiki just continued to stare as Twister cleared his throat and calmly began addressing the worried, would-be chef.

"Akane, there are many ingredients one can use to make up a dish. Some are hot, some tangy, some to add color." He paused, then shook his head in disbelief. "But how in the world did you get this," he waved at what lay before him, "to glow?!?!"

Indeed it was. The dish sprouted recognizable bits of fish, rice, and noodles. Those were the parts he knew. The rest... were strange bits of what may have been part of a food group at one point in time. It was all contained as one mass by some unknown green substance that had caused he and Nabiki to stare, for it pulsed an evil-looking, sickly-green light from within. This was not normal behavior for lunch. Maybe at a nuclear waste plant, but not here.

"You didn't happen to find some glowing green rock in a crater outside and decided it might taste good, did you?" he inquired, not really conscious of what he was saying as he stared at the blob.

***Wham!!***

"I expect that of Ranma, not you!!" an angry Akane said, lifting her Ranma-smashing-mallet off of Twister's head, he seemed a little dazed from the blow.

"Owwwww....."

Nabiki stood up and crossed her arms, looking up at Akane. "Can you tell me your source at the nuclear power plant? There's money in radioactive substances."

"Not you too, oneesan!" Akane's angry face looked ready to burst into tears. "I worked so hard on it too. What are you doing??" Akane demanded, seeing Twister poking at the glowing green disaster.

"What did you use, Akane?" He didn't feel like joking around now, not when he had this sneaking suspicion...

Nabiki caught his strange expression. "What's up?"

Twister stood up, dubiously looking at the table's contents. "I won't know until Akane shows me what she used and I examine the kitchen. This might and might not be Akane's fault. You might be used to Akane's strange dishes..." Seeing Nabiki's grimace, he amended, "Well, seeing them that is, but this kinda stretches my belief." He waved Akane into the kitchen. "Now, what did you use again?"

Not knowing what was going on, Akane, with noticeable confusion, complied.

"Well, I started with the flour..."

Akane was even more confused now.

"I put everything that I used on the countertop, Twister. Now can you please tell me what...?" he silenced her with a raised hand as he carefully examined each item.

The countertop was littered with dozens of ingredients and cooking utensils, leaving no room left for anything else. Nabiki and Kasumi curiously looked on, wondering what Twister was up to. Finally he straightened, nodded to himself, and went over to the kitchen sink to fill a glass of water.

"What are you..." Akane stopped as she saw Twister pour the cool water over his own head. "Why did you do that for?" She was rapidly losing her patience with his behavior.

"Testing two theories in one shot," Darlene explained mysteriously, making Akane even more frustrated and piquing Nabiki's curiosity further.

Nabiki was quick to figure out what the now red-headed magic-user had planned. "You think one of these things is magical?" Akane's eyes widened at that; maybe it wasn't her fault after all that her dish had failed!

"That's one theory," Darlene agreed. Before a puzzled Nabiki could inquire as to the second theory, she began the spell.

"Magic, magic, where do you lie?  
Invisible to the untrained eye,  
I seek you now, don't pass me by,  
Brightly glow, to make me sigh."

Everyone in the room breathlessly waited for something to happen.

Nothing.

Nabiki tilted her head in puzzlement, then said, "Either your spell's a bust or this stuff isn't magical."

Smirking, Darlene turned to her. "It's the second. And that's because the other theory is the winner." She pointed beyond the kitchen door and the three sisters followed the direction where they could now see a purple glow.

Surrounding the dish Akane had made.

"Waitaminute!" Nabiki blurted in obvious confusion as Akane stared, incomprehension plain on her face, at what she had made. "If none of the things Akane used was magical, but that green thing she made is, then...then..." Her eyes widened as she came to the same conclusion Darlene had made a few minutes ago.

"Yup," Darlene nodded as Akane whirled to face her, a little crazy-eyed. "Then Akane is a cooking magic-user like I'm a rhyming one."

Akane stared at the smiling Darlene. She stuttered out, "But... I... That's..." Her eyes rolled up and she fainted.

"She took the news well," Nabiki noted dryly, helping Darlene catch her younger sister before she could collapse onto the kitchen floor.

"I guess she wasn't expecting something like that," Darlene said as they carried Akane out to the dining room, propping her up in a chair. "I certainly wasn't, at first. We're going to have to look into this a bit further later on; I've never heard of anything like this before." The red-haired girl looked down thoughtfully at the comatose Akane. "We'd better take it slow for a while first, and not rush her. Maybe Professor Miyabi can help figure this out." Darlene grinned suddenly. "She's going to hate seeing me. First SkyKnight, and now this!"

As if uttering the name of his alter-ego had been a spell, Bert lurched through the door to the room. He was walking stiffly, with a very deliberate and careful step. His hair was absolutely plastered to his brow with sweat, and his sweater was also damp with perspiration. His breathing was labored to say the least and his gaze was very firmly fixed dead ahead. He walked blindly past a wide-eyed Darlene and the puzzled Nabiki into the kitchen. They heard the taps run briefly, then the sounds of someone gulping back a glass of water. The sounds repeated a few more times as Darlene and Nabiki swapped a puzzled glance.

"What's with him?" Nabiki asked. "He looked like he was on autopilot, or something."

"I'm not sure," Darlene said slowly. "But I've got an idea...." She cut off as Bert came back into the dining room, looking a little more normal. He finally noticed the scene in the dining room and his expression became slightly concerned.

"Hey, what happened to Akane?!" he queried. "Is she sick?"

"No," Darlene cut in before Nabiki could reply. "She just got some shocking news, and she didn't handle it too well. I can tell you later what it was. What happened to you? You looked like you'd just staggered in from the desert, or something."

"You alternately run and walk the ten miles from the university to here and we'll see just how good your condition is afterwards." Darlene and Nabiki gaped incredulously at him.

"You walked?!" Darlene asked disbelievingly. "Couldn't Miyabi teleport you back here instead?" It was the wrong thing to say; Bert's expression froze instantly, like he'd been dipped in liquid nitrogen.

"She offered to, but I refused," he replied shortly. "I needed the exercise anyway."

"You could have taken the bus, instead," Nabiki pointed out.

"Like I said I needed......the.......exercise...." Bert's voice trailed off as he finally noticed the glowing plate of food sitting on the dinner table. He turned green himself, almost the color of Akane's magical preparation. "Excuse me," he said weakly. "I think I need to lie down." He walked jerkily past them, vanishing up the stairs.

"Oh great," Darlene groaned, covering her eyes with a hand. "Just great."

"Hmm..." Nabiki considered this new development. "Twister, you better go help your new friend. We'll stay with Akane and talk to her when she wakes up." The so-far silent Kasumi nodded, supporting her sister.

"Think you can calm her down?" When Nabiki nodded, Darlene grinned. "Teamwork, gotta love it." After giving her a peck on the cheek, startling the brown-haired middle sister, Darlene rushed over to the stairs and bounded up them in a flash.

Nabiki placed a hand on the cheek as she watched her 'boyfriend' go. The red-head seemed more high-spirited than she recalled. What else is there that happened to him? she wondered.

Sprawled across the bed, Bert miserably stared up at the ceiling in the room Kasumi had prepared for him. Apparently, it had been Twister's before he had moved to the university area along with Nabiki. Something else was on his mind at the moment, however...

Magic, magic, magic, magic! Everywhere I turn there's something magical staring me in the face, he mentally snarled. Even his armor had become a part of this craziness. Talk about adding insult to injury!

There was a knock on the door; Bert just wanted to ignore everything at the moment and didn't reply. Maybe whoever it was would think he was asleep; he was certainly tired enough for it. Then there was a second, more insistent knocking and he sighed disgustedly; they weren't giving up, whoever it was.

"Come in," he called out reluctantly, sitting up.

The door opened and a bright-eyed Darlene stepped in. "Hi! How are you?"

"Oh, everything's just perfect. Fine. Lovely," he sarcastically said.

"Not," she countered, losing the bounce in her step, correctly interpreting his mood. Closing the door behind her, Darlene walked over to the opposite side of the room and leaned on the wall to face him. "How did leaving your suit at Miyabi's go?"

Bert chuckled, his foul mood briefly lightening. "She took it fairly well, considering I flew in through her roof opening at a pretty high speed."

Darlene gasped. "You didn't!"

"I'm an expert on flying my suit, don't worry." Seeing her dubious look, he added, "Trust me." The cute red-haired girl shook her head.

"She should be more pleased when I bring Akane as a potential student. I hope," Darlene sighed, then frowned as she saw Bert stiffen. "Coming back to the reason I came up here in the first place; what's up with you? You ran rather than saving a lot of time and teleporting here. Then you blanched when you saw Akane's...er...creation. I can understand you being a little afraid of mag..."

"A little afraid?!" Bert mildly said, interrupting her. His voice began to rise, sounding like he was on the thin edge of blowing up. "A little afraid?!?! Something that defies all logic, drags me across dimensions like a goddamn leaf in a hurricane, has somehow affected my suit, and mostly likely me as well, in ways unknown and you think I'm a little afraid of it?!?! It warps sane, logical reality into bloody pretzels where ever I go! Of course I'm afraid of it! It's totally irrational! It's...It's..." Bert gave up talking as he was starting to ramble incoherently and panted for breath.

Darlene was completely still, looking very calm, and said, "Get over it." in a slightly tight voice. Her blue eyes seemed to suddenly glitter icily.

He glared back at her. "You get over it."

"I have...mostly," she said, still apparently calm, and Bert blinked. "Haven't you wondered how I got this way?" She lazily waved a hand at herself. "You've never asked."

Bert blinked again, and looked over her, admittedly attractive, body. "I thought you'd somehow got dumped into the same pond Ranma had."

"But the exact same body? And the psionics? And the magic?" Darlene prompted.

Bert nodded slowly. "Well, that has gotten me wonder..."

"Because I didn't have a choice either!!" Darlene screamed at him, shocking Bert backwards as she quickly stepped over to the bed, standing over him and clenching her fists. It almost looked like her eyes were glowing, which Bert nervously realized they might actually be doing. In a marginally quieter voice, she furiously went on, "You're not the only one who was dragged from their home by a miscast spell! In fact, my chances of surviving that which changed me and gave me first my psionic and then magical powers were probably orders of magnitude less than yours! You probably weren't in any danger at all since I was the one that channelled the power and likely affected it some ways!" She was literally shaking with rage as Bert frantically looked around for an avenue of escape in case Darlene did something he wouldn't want to stay around for.

She went on. "And illogical?! Hah! Do you think psionics is logical? Do you?!?" Darlene demanded of Bert, fury still her voice.

"Ah, um, err, well..." he stammered. Darlene narrowed her eyes and he scrambled frantically to answer her. "Yes! Yes, it is! It at least obeys the laws of physics from what I understand."

"Well, I've got news for you, bucko! At some point magic and psionics can merge! I've done it myself once! Just because it may seem chaotic doesn't mean it has to be. Sure it can be irrational! Like," Darlene faltered, "when I went...insane and...almost hurt a...lot of people because," she lifted trembling hands in front of her face, "I got angry...when female..." Her face crumpled, anger vanished like the wind. Darlene sank down to her knees and started sobbing.

Bert stared for a moment, taken by surprise by the radical change in Darlene's mood. He started to move forwards hesitantly, instinct prompting him to comfort the sobbing girl somehow. He froze solid a moment later, remembering that she wasn't really a girl all the time. How was he... she going to react to a stranger suddenly putting his arm around him...her?! What the hell was he supposed to do now?!

As he stood there, floundering in a mental quandary, the door flew open, and Nabiki stood in the doorway. Her brown eyes flared in anger as she gazed at the crying girl on the floor, and the red-haired young man with a confused expression standing awkwardly nearby. She immediately hit the wrong conclusion.

"What did you do to her?!" she snapped, quickly going over to Darlene, kneeling, and wrapping her up in a hug. Darlene sobbed uncontrollably onto her shoulder as she glared up at Bert. "Get out," she told him glacially. "I don't want to hear whatever the excuse is; she was trying to help you, and this is the thanks she gets?! Get out before I really get mad at you."

"But I didn't...." Bert's voice trailed off as Nabiki's furious glare lanced into him. A trace of confusion and hurt flickered across his face, quickly becoming walled-off as his face settled into a stony mask. "Fine," he replied flatly. "I'm leaving. Don't worry; I won't darken your doorstep again." Nabiki didn't watch him leave, being too pre-occupied with trying to soothe the still-crying Darlene.

Bert stalked down the front steps of the dojo, ignoring Kasumi's startled inquiry as to where he was going at suppertime, and stormed down the front walkway, out into the street. Fuming, he started striding like a runaway thunderstorm down the sidewalk.

He had to go somewhere, anywhere, just as long as it was away from the dojo. Some of the pedestrians who saw the grim-faced young man coming immediately crossed the street, getting out of his way; there was an almost visible cloud of anger and frustration hanging over his head.

Well, he asked himself, now what, genius? You've managed to alienate most of the people who were trying to help you. Congratulations! Keep it up, and maybe they'll kill you before you get homesick. It was the thought of home more than anything else that cleared his mind somewhat, allowing him to examine himself and the causes for his vile mood.

Partly, it was indeed homesickness; he was missing everyone, Nene especially, with an intensity that was almost palpable. He didn't really know a soul here, with the possible exception of Twister, and he felt isolated and alone; he didn't fit in here, even slightly. It was made worse by the fact that, for the moment at least, it didn't appear that he was going to be going home anytime soon. As a result, he'd lashed out at anyone trying to get through his emotional barriers.

A portion of his disquiet was because he still wasn't fully recovered mentally, at least, not enough to be able to handle the strangeness he was all too often confronting now.

The last factor contributing to his upset state was, being brutally honest about it, fear. He'd been uprooted by something that defied all logical explanation: magic. Every time he thought about it, he wanted to run screaming away from the idea. Because of his unease, he supposed he'd been unconsciously blaming Twister for his current problems. It wasn't entirely fair, but he hadn't been in a frame of mind suited for fairness.

Twister's....no, Darlene's outburst had brought to light a couple of points that he hadn't been aware of before. Namely that she hadn't had a choice either about what had happened to her... him... whomever!!! At any rate, she'd mostly accepted what had been done to her, although he wasn't really sure why she'd suddenly collapsed, crying. If he got the chance, he'd have to find out what that was all about.

Like it or not, however, he was going to have to just grit his teeth and bear with the current situation; whining and carrying on about how much life sucked and was being unfair to him wasn't about to solve his problems. Bert sighed again, straightening up and squaring his shoulders, feeling a little better that he'd managed to clear his mind somewhat. Now the question was: what did he do in the meantime?

The first thing he was going to have to do was try and get at least a basic understanding of magic, even though his mind wanted to shut down at the concept. If he could figure out how it worked, then maybe he might be able to help find a way to solve his predicament. All right, he told himself as he walked along, start from first principles.

Now then, magic appeared to be some form of energy. Energy behaved according to certain rules, or should, at least. Somehow, magical energy was manipulated by the spellcaster to produce the desired effects. Now how was it shaped? Spells, of course.

Spells were rhymes, at least it was in Darlene's case, that focused the caster's will, meaning that the caster had to have the correct mental image firmly in place in order to produce the desired effect. It was the combination of the structure of the poetry, such as rhyme and meter and so forth, that forced the mind into the proper state to be able to channel magic.

That being the case, it followed that magical energy was directed by thought patterns. Thought patterns in the brain were electromagnetic in nature, although perhaps electrochemical might be a better term. At any rate, since different people had different mindsets, and, apparently, different magical aptitudes, it made sense that the magical energy was controlled by their thought patterns. Ergo, magical energy might be able to be manipulated by electromagnetic forces.

Bert grinned to himself suddenly, feeling better for having come up with at least a partial theory on what magic was. There was still a large unknown operating in his equation, but at least he had a basis to start from. All he had to do was conduct a few experiments somehow. Well, since Prof. Miyabi had said that some testing of his suit was necessary, he supposed he could start there. She could conduct her tests and he could use his suit sensors to conduct a few of his own at the same time. That wasn't going to happen until tomorrow at the very earliest, though.

He slowed his pace, thoughtfully gazing around at the small park he'd wandered into: it appeared to be deserted. He sighed suddenly, and slumped into a nearby bench. Might as well get comfortable, he told himself, you're going to be here for a while.

He sat there, mind wandering aimlessly, as darkness began to fall.

"Feeling better?" Nabiki asked, handing another Kleenex to Darlene. The red-haired, blue-eyed girl nodded wordlessly, taking the proffered tissue and blowing her nose. She added the sodden wad to the steadily growing pile in the wastebasket.

"A lot better now, thanks," she sniffled. "You're a great comfort," she added, a faint smile appearing. Nabiki smiled back, relieved that the crying storm was over, and hoping some kind of explanation was forthcoming. Darlene's next question wiped the smile off her face again.

"Where'd Bert go?" Darlene asked. Nabiki's expression turned stony.

"I don't know, and I don't really care," she replied coldly. "If all he can do is say things that are going to upset you that badly, then I don't think we need him around." Darlene became wide-eyed and worried at the same time.

"Oh no!! What did you say to him?! It wasn't his fault! Well, maybe in part, then again maybe not, but still..."

"Stop!" Nabiki shouted. Startled, Darlene stopped her babbling, mouth still open. "Was it, or was it not his fault?" she asked.

Darlene slowly shook her head. "No, it wasn't."

"Oh, boy," Nabiki sighed. "I practically tossed him out after I saw you." When a panicky Darlene tried passing by her to try to catch Bert, Nabiki grabbed an arm in a firm grip and whirled Darlene around to face her. "If it's not his fault, then why were you crying like you had lost your dearest friend in the world?? I've never seen you act this emotionally before," a stray recollection came to her mind, "and you were perfectly fine when you were your old self..." She frowned at the red-head, who looked away. "It's something to do with your female half, isn't it? Why you, when Ranma isn't..." Nabiki turned Darlene's head around with her, surprisingly gentle, hand. There was a slightly concerned expression on her face. "Come on, Twister, please answer me."

Darlene looked down at the floor, a little ashamed that she had worried Nabiki. "I think it might be a combination of the change...and the Event. Makes me more emotional when female. It slowly crept up on me before I realized what was happening. I...also went a little berserk in the universe that I was in and perhaps very, very lucky that I didn't hurt anyone...badly when my rage exploded. I...," Darlene looked on the point of tears again, "somehow tapped into the Event when it happened and went temporarily insane...until I got rid of it all, creating the bolt of magical energy that brought Bert here. He was just complaining, justifiably, about magic and his troubles, which got me angry till I remembered about...the incident. The memory hit me harder that I expected."

Nabiki stared at the red-headed girl who was also the man she loved before shaking her head. "You never have it easy, do you?"

Darlene sighed. "I guess not. Speaking of which, how's Akane doing?"

"Once she got used to the idea, pretty well actually. Cheerful, in fact," Nabiki replied, grinning slightly.

Darlene blinked. "How so?"

"She feels that this will give her something to compete with Ranma's other 'fiancÃ©es'. Akane's always felt that she had nothing to offer Ranma personally, now she has."

"Not unless she can cook something else other than Superman's funeral cake." Darlene grimaced. "You'd better tell her to keep quiet about it until she can. I have to find Bert." She hesitated, glancing at Nabiki.

It was seen. "I'll apologize if that is what's bothering you."

"It's not that..."

"What then?"

"I...um...mentioned that I had picked the name Darlene Stefenson during my...ah...confession for my female form." Darlene shyly said.

"So? You said you were amnesiac when you picked it," Nabiki curiously said. "Oh...you prefer it now? I guess it's better than Itazuka."

"Yes...but there was a reason I picked that one even so. My name is Darren Steffler, Nabiki," she finished in a rush.

Blankly looking down at the expectant Darlene for a second, Nabiki slowly began to smile. "And...am I the first you've told your real name to after your change?"

Darlene simply said "Yes." with a smile.

Nabiki's smile grew very happy, but with a hint of a grin. "Seeing your current status, I'll kiss you later. But for now..." She hugged Darlene tightly, and said, "I love you."

"And I love you too," Darlene softly replied, deciding that the feelings of warm comfort and being sheltered she felt while being hugged by the currently taller Nabiki could be accepted without confusion for the moment.

She could certainly reverse positions easily enough.

Then her eyes widened as she remembered something. Or rather someone.

*Oh, no! I still have to find Bert!*

Bert started awake; he had dozed off but something had awakened him. It was still a little light out, but the park lights had come on already. He wondered why he was on the park bench before he remembered Nabiki's icy departure notice and mentally groaned. Then something else caught his attention. He thought he was alone in the park, but he could swear he could hear...faint, but definitely insane...laughter?!

What the hell?!

Kodachi tried to stifle her laughter; stealth was essential to her plan, but merely thinking about her latest plan to bring her darling Ranma into her loving arms increased her joy.

Soon, my darling! Soon we will be together forever!

Carefully, Kodachi patted down the earth where she had transplanted the plants she had grown from seeds from their birthing pots. She had selected an unused section of the park to plant her little pets as she did not want unwanted bodies littering up her trap.

The man I bought those wonderful seeds from told me that this is the highest the plants will grow, but that they will more than make up for it with their magic! He didn't specify how, but one set of plants will ensnare anyone within range and the other will put the victim into a hypnotic trance. Anyone save the one who grew them.

Hohohohohohohoho, she mentally laughed. I will bring all those hussies that are after my dear Ranma here and then they will be at my mercy! And if my love doesn't see the wisdom of my actions, well, maybe I will bring him here too...

"Hey, who are you and what the hell are you doing??" a voice rudely demanded behind her.

Startled, Kodachi stood and turned around to see a strange, tall, red-headed young man. She stood rooted to the spot in shock for a moment, speechless.

"Well?" the young man asked again. "Who are you, lady? Do you usually sneak around public parks at night, cackling like brooding chickens?" He cast a greenish-brown-eyed gaze at the strange-looking plants. "And I don't think that the Public Works department, assuming there is one here, will appreciate your planting thistles, or whatever the hell they are, in the parks, either."

"Who...who are you?!" Kodachi finally found her voice. She hadn't noticed anyone in the park earlier. In her glee at having a foolproof plan to get Ranma, she'd evidently missed seeing him around. Drat the luck! Her mind raced as she tried to think of a way out of her current dilemma.

"My name's Bert. Now who are you?" he replied impatiently. "I'd kinda like to know who is nutty enough to sneak around planting noxious weeds for the hell of it."

Kodachi managed to throttle down her anger at his unflattering description of her lovingly tended beauties.

"My name is Kodachi," she replied, trying to appear charming, primping her hair a bit. "I'm not harming anyone, really, and they're not weeds. They blossom into beautiful flowers whenever someone approaches them. Why don't you look closer, and see for yourself?"

"Proximity-sensitive flowers?" Bert said skeptically. "Yeah, sure, tell me another one!" Nonetheless, he did start to bend closer to have a look at the strange, dark-green plants with the peculiar-looking pods on the ends of the stalks; his curiosity had been piqued, even though he was a lousy botanist. Kodachi stepped back slightly, a triumphant grin spreading across her features.

"They don't appear to be......what the?! Ackpphhhtfhthtp!" Bert surged upright, snorting and sneezing in surprise as the twin plants suddenly swivelled like gun turrets and spat a cloud of strange, faintly-glowing pollen into his face from two pods. He doubled over again, wheezing and gasping; whatever the stuff was, it was stinging his lungs like fire, and spots were beginning to dance in front of his eyes.

"Don't you feel much better now?" Kodachi cooed. "You're going to forget all about this now, aren't you?"

"That's what you think, lady," Bert wheezed, anger beginning to kindle as he dropped to his knees, unable to breathe. He'd never had an allergic reaction to pollen of any kind before, but he was pretty sure that was what was happening now; it couldn't be anything else. Great, his hazy mind noted sardonically, just great. Here he was, dragged thousands of miles from home by goddamn magical forces that he didn't understand, homesick and alone, and he was suffocating because he'd been poisoned by some deranged, cackling girl who'd planted killer weeds. "I'm not feeling better, and I'm sure as hell not going to forget it!" He gritted his teeth, trying to force himself back to his feet. Purple sparks began to flare in his vision; he figured his air was running short.

Kodachi frowned in sudden doubt; the effects of the plants were supposed to have been immediate, but the stranger who'd confronted her didn't appear to be affected, not in the manner she wanted, anyway. That meant she'd have to take care of him the old-fashioned way, then. As she stepped forwards, a massive flare of purple-white light accompanied by a concussive blast of air split the night sky, throwing her hurtling backwards into the bushes, and briefly etching sharp shadows through the small park.

Boooooooom!!!!!!!

"Aaaaaaaagghh!!" Darlene screamed, throwing her hands over her ears, doubling over in pain, almost falling to her knees. A very surprised Nabiki caught her arm, and hauled her back to her feet.

"Twister?! I mean, Darlene, what's wrong?!" She looked around, mystified, at the empty street they had been walking down; there was nothing within sight that could have caused that kind of reaction. A faint rumble in the background faded.

"You didn't hear it?!" Darlene asked dazedly, shaking her head. There was a deafening ringing going on inside and she wished someone would answer the phone so that she could at least hear again. After a moment, it died down a little, very little.

"Hear what?" the brown-haired girl replied concernedly. "There was nothing to hear! You just folded up, screaming!"

"But it was deafening!" Darlene protested. "How could you not.....uh-oh." Her face suddenly blanched.

"What?! What is it?!"

"If only I heard it, in this form," Darlene said slowly, "then it was inside my head, and so the sound was magically produced, which means..." Her head snapped up, a worried light igniting in her blue eyes. "It's Bert; something must have triggered his change to SkyKnight."

"What?!" Nabiki said confusedly. "You mean he can instant change like you and Ranma?"

"Not quite," Darlene sighed. "I'll explain later. Right now we've got to go find him, quick. Something that loud on the magic spectrum will probably bring a few people running." The two women began running down the street as Darlene continued to steer them in the direction her little tracking spell that she'd whipped up was pointing. No one else could see it as she didn't want people staring.

"Is ... is... it .... much.... further?!" Nabiki panted after several blocks. How far away had he gone, anyway?!

"Just up ahead," Darlene replied, running easily and ignoring any physical discomforts that manifested themselves. "He's showing up like a beacon right now."

They pounded down the empty street and rounded a corner in time to hear a loud, sizzling and crackling boom, as if someone had temporarily unleashed lightning in the neighborhood. A blinding crimson aura sprang into being briefly in the air around a small public park up ahead.

Darlene tried to run faster, praying that everything was okay. They ran through the gates of the park, heading for approximately where they'd heard the explosions emanate from. Darlene and Nabiki skidded to a halt as they reached the approximate center of the park, and stared around in stunned amazement at the swirling chaos that now occupied the normally tranquil area.

Leaves swirled everywhere, being lofted around by lingering vortices of air. A dusty, smoky haze drifted through the air in some places and there was the smell of charred vegetation. As the two girls stared around, it became evident that some of the devastation originated from a central location; the way some of the bushes and small trees had been levelled indicated an outward-moving blast. They moved forward cautiously, nervous about what they might find.

As they passed a drunkenly leaning tree, a staggering, silver-garbed armor suit became visible. Tortured hacking and coughing could be heard coming from SkyKnight, but they couldn't see an apparent cause. It was evident that he was at ground zero of the disaster; all the plants in the area were laying flat in an outwardly radiating spiral from him.

"Bert!" Darlene called, relief surging up. "Are you okay?! What happened?" She ran over to him. Nabiki followed more slowly, looking around at the surrounding havoc, suddenly unsure of herself.

"Just.... a .... second....can't ....breathe," SkyKnight rasped. He reached up, and yanked off his helmet. Spinning around, the red-haired Knight Saber was suddenly violently sick on a nearby patch of scorched earth. Coughing weakly, he managed to get himself under control as Darlene stared, wide-eyed. Concerned, she started to move forwards to give him a steadying hand, but he waved her off, staggering back up to his feet.

"Better," Bert said hoarsely, wiping his mouth on the back of a gauntlet. He cleared his throat a few times, and sneezed a couple more times before he seemed to recover from what had been bothering him. His bloodshot, greenish-brown eyes blinked a few times, and he took a deep, grateful breath.

"Aaaaah!" he sighed in relief, slapping his helmet back on, but leaving the visor up. "Much better. You never realize how much you miss breathing until it's not there."

"Would you please tell me what happened?!?!" Darlene demanded, fuming in exasperation. Bert looked at her in surprise, finally realizing who had come charging into the park. His gaze flicked over towards Nabiki. Darlene had the sudden impression of shields snapping into place, but Bert still answered her, not quite meeting her gaze.

"Some bloody witch suckered me into looking at some stupid plants and the goddamn things tried to poison me, that's what happened. Whatever those plants shot at me damn near suffocated me; I guess my suit reacted to my state of mind, which was alternately scared and furious over the trick. Anyhow, whatever those plants were, they won't be bothering anyone ever again." He pointed, and Darlene finally noticed a large, smoking crater nearby. It was the crater that the smell of charred plants was coming from.

"So who was this 'witch'?" she asked curiously. SkyKnight shrugged irritably.

"I don't know," he answered. "Some black-haired nutbar who cackles insanely and talks to herself. She's back there somewhere," he added, gesturing vaguely in the direction he'd seen her go flying in the blast that had accompanied the arrival of his suit.

"Uh-oh," Nabiki said. "That almost sounded like Kodachi."

"Who?"

"Kodachi. She's Kuno's sister, and she's mad about Ranma."

"Another one?!" SkyKnight shook his head. "I could almost feel sorry for the guy. I..." He stiffened suddenly. "Kuno's sister?! Oh bloody great! Now I've probably got the whole family mad at me!!"

"That is the least of your worries, mister," a woman's voice with barely controlled anger put in from behind him. SkyKnight turned around as Darlene stepped around him to see who it was. A furious older woman with green eyes and raven-black hair was standing at the edge of the disaster zone, glaring at them.

"Hello, Professor," SkyKnight sighed. "Something I can help you with?"

"Well, one thing you could do is...stop calling your armour!!" Miyabi yelled furiously, glaring at the slightly cringing Bert in his SkyKnight hardsuit.

Bert rallied his own anger. "I didn't have a flying choice in the matter! I was att...att...achoooo!!!" he sneezed explosively, almost falling down. "Damn. What was that pollen?? I've never been allergic before."

"Pardon me, Professor," Darlene interjected, saving Bert from a blistering retort from Miyabi, "but if whoever attacked Bert was Kodachi, and given her fixation on flowers and poisons it likely was, then it's not really his fault."

Miyabi glared at Darlene and Bert for a moment, then visibly tried to relax. "I'm sorry, Bert. When you do that it gives me an awful headache and when it happens so unexpectedly...I get irritable. If something gets you mad enough to summon your armor then there must be a reason."

"Thank you," Bert nodded at the apology.

Darlene rubbed her forehead. "But next time, Bert, try to do it when I'm male please? God, that hurt."

Bert was surprised, then concerned. "You too? Sorry about that."

"Screamed and almost collapsed when it happened," Nabiki remarked, making Bert even more worried.

Miyabi nodded. "She would've. Considering how I feel and how much more sensitive she is, I would suspect it hit twice as hard."

"It's okay," Darlene reassured Bert, who had been about to apologize again. She turned to Nabiki, who seemed to sense what Darlene planned to say next and was looking this way and that. "Nabiki...? You wanted to say something?"

Nabiki's shoulders went up and down as she sighed deeply and walked over to the armored Bert, who stiffened a bit at her close proximity. She looked somewhat hesitant as she started. "I'm...not used to this as I'm usually good at...assessing a situation, but..." she frowned suddenly and accusingly pointed at a startled Bert's hardsuit. "It would help a lot if you weren't wearing that tailor-made tank," she complained.

"Nabiki..." Darlene reminded her. Bert had to grin a little; the armor could intimidate people at times.

"Oh, all right! I am sorry for thinking you were responsible for what happened and for throwing you out." Nabiki looked away, embarrassed. "I guess I wasn't thinking very calmly then."

Bert thought about what his own reactions would be if he had seen someone standing over a crying Nene. Not very good ones, he admitted to himself. Actually, Nabiki probably handled it much more calmly than he would have in her position. You never do think very rationally when it comes to the ones you love, he mused, glancing at Darlene, even if they are a little strange.

He smiled at Nabiki, who appeared relieved at his reaction. "Apology accepted."

"I'm sure someone will explain what you are talking about?!" Miyabi demanded. "It's getting late so let's conclude this quickly. You two," she pointed at Nabiki and Darlene, "have classes tomorrow, remember?"

Darlene sighed. "I told you my emotions in female form intensified during my...ah...trip, Professor, and I'm still trying to get used to them. Sometimes...they get a little out of control." She looked embarrassed. Bert rolled his eyes at the understatement, but didn't add any extra comments.

"Ah yes, I'd forgotten with this matter with Bert, but then," Miyabi looked very amused, "you were rather in a hurry to leave the..."

"Yes, yes!" Darlene, in a panic, interrupted her frantically. "Well, like you said, it's late. Me and Nabiki gotta go back for some hot water, so I'll teleport to your place and pick up Bert. Okay, Bert? Great! See you in a bit. Come on, Nabiki!" Darlene practically threw Nabiki over her shoulder as she dragged the startled young woman behind her in her mad rush back to the dojo.

Very surprised, Bert watched them leave. Why does she remind me of A-Ko right now? he mused. Shrugging, he turned to the still smiling Professor. "Now what was that all about?"

"It seems my young pupil hasn't told Nabiki about what happened in the village of the Amazons yet," Miyabi chuckled.

"Amazons..." Memory tickled Bert's mind until it hit him like a sledge hammer. "Wait... Don't tell me she got into a fight...and won?"

Miyabi arched her eyebrows in surprise. "You know their customs?"

"Just that one about male-marry, female-kill. Hoo, boy. There's trouble brewing I would imagine."

"Perhaps I shouldn't have mentioned it, but it will come out soon enough. Like all in their village, Lotion is a very determined young woman. Fortunately, she's nicer than most. Very fortunate, since she's also studying magic."

"Oh, boy." Bert said worriedly. "That is trouble. I hope Nabiki isn't in danger."

"Perhaps," Miyabi's lips twitched in amusement, "but not the type of danger you mean." Before Bert could inquire further, she briskly said, "Now, returning your armor: How shall we do this?"

Bert grinned. "I can suggest one method..." he started, slapping his helmet visor closed. Instantly, the red helmet eyeslot flared into eerily-glowing life, and a low thrum began to pulse through the air. His wings snapped out behind him as Miyabi looked at him dubiously.


	8. Twisted Path 4.3

Darlene screeched to a halt when they reached the dojo, panting heavily and not just from exertion.

Nabiki's hair had seen better days as it stuck out in random intervals. "I think we could've slowed down a little," she complained, straightening out her clothes and checking out her normally flat hair.

"Sorry, but Bert can move fast in that suit of his. Didn't want them to wait too long," Darlene explained, thinking quickly.

"You still have to walk back," Nabiki pointed out. "He seems rather...reluctant about your teleports."

Darlene's face fell, then grinned. "That is easily taken care of."

Nabiki held her hands up. "I don't want to know."

"Chicken."

"Practical," Nabiki countered as they finally stepped into the house.

Everyone seemed to be back; Soun and Genma were playing Go, as usual; Kasumi cleaning up the table with the remnants of supper; faint sounds from the training hall indicating Akane was smashing bricks; and Ranma...

"Aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!!!" came a feminine scream from upstairs. Wham! Bang! "Come back here you old pervert!!" Crash!

"Ranma's playing with Happosai again," Nabiki commented redundantly.

"Hmm... I need to tell them not to get Bert mad," Darlene said. "Better change first." She headed towards to kitchen.

"I'll check up on Akane," Nabiki called out, and started towards the training hall.

"But this bra would look so good on you!" Happosai petulantly cried out as he dodged Ranma-chan's furious kick, said bra in hand.

"Forget it, you old letch!!" the furious red-head shouted.

Twister watched them for a moment as the two bounced around in the upstairs hallway. They didn't notice him because he was using his 'unnotice me' trick. He sighed. There was only one thing he could do to make them listen, but he really didn't like to do it.

Oh, well.

Ranma-chan stopped in mid air during her next assault on the old hentai, startling her considerably. "What?!?!"

"Sweetums!" Happosai leaped in joy as Ranma-chan tried to frantically backpedal in mid-air. Then Happosai was caught in mid-air also, a few scant feet away from a now-relieved Ranma-chan. "Noooooo!!!!" he cried in anguish.

"Oh, come on. It's not that bad," Twister griped.

Both suspended martial artists somehow whirled im mid-air to look at the calm face of the brown-haired psionicist.

"I don't need your help, Twister..." Ranma-chan started.

"I needed to get your attention somehow." Twister shrugged. "This seemed best as I'm in a hurry."

Ranma-chan folded into a cross-legged, sitting position. "So what did you want to say?"

"The guy who's going to be staying here...don't get him mad. Please. For his sake and yours."

"Even if he beat Kuno, what's all the fuss?" Ranma-chan wanted to know.

"His armor was affected when he was brought here and whenever he gets really angry it's summoned to him. Explosively. Think of two of Happosai's bombs going off point-blank in your face. He ran into Kodachi and she tried something on him that Bert found hyper-allergenic. His suit came, Kodachi went flying, and Bert nuked the plants she used with his on-board weapons. You'd have a very tough time avoiding damage from laser and particle-beam weapons," he added for Happosai's benefit.

Suddenly, Happosai pulled out a bucket and splashed a surprised Twister with water. Ranma-chan dropped to the floor, hard, as the telekinetic force keeping her up vanished, but the old hentai was ready and bounced to the wet Darlene, or, more accurately, her breasts.

"Aahhh!!" she screamed in shock, then more angrily, "Freeze, Please!!"

Happosai went stiff as a board, still clinging to the angry mage until she pulled him off. His eyes still moved back and forth frantically.

She dropped him, not caring about the floor, and he landed with a thunk. "Argh! He just can't give up, can he?" Darlene spat furiously.

"Happosai?? Yeah, right." Ranma-chan cheerfully strolled over and poked at the living statue. "Is this the same thing you did to me?"

"Yes, except he won't freeze; he just can't move." Darlene grimaced. "I've got to get going. See you later." She turned and left for the kitchen.

Ranma-chan kneeled down to look directly into Happosai's still moving eyes. Grinning, she dangled the bra in front of him and the eyes filled with tears.

"Guess we're gonna have some fun, don'tcha think, Gramps?"

Somehow, the eyes conveyed a great sense of panic.

When Twister arrived in Miyabi's workshop, Bert was pacing the floor. Seeing Twister's face, he sighed. "Finally!" Then he frowned. "What's with the getup? And why does it seem so damn familiar?" Twister was dressed in a dark blue riding outfit and holding a motorcycle helmet in one arm.

"Well, seeing you don't seem to like teleportation..." Twister started.

"I'm getting more used to the concept," Bert interjected, even though he still looked queasy at the prospect.

"...I brought other transportation." Twister finished, and held up what appeared to be a small model of a motorcycle, much to Bert's disbelief.

"Surely you don't plan on shrinking us?!" When Twister rolled his eyes Bert sighed with relief.

"I shrunk my bike I built in Mega-Tokyo and brought it with me. All you need to do is speak a word and it'll grow back to normal. Don't worry about a helmet for now; if you're not safe with a telekinetic biker, who is?" Twister grinned slyly, adding, "And don't call me Shirley." Bert grimaced at the joke, and returned to examining Twister's clothing.

"That getup you've got still looks damn familiar...." Bert snapped his fingers when it came to him. "That's Priss' getup and..." He peered at the mini-bike. "..her bike too!"

Twister shrugged. "I copied it. And...had some fun with her." He grimaced. "Even though she got me back many times because of it."

"Oho!" Bert grinned evilly. "This I've got to hear! Come on, spill it! And don't leave anything out now!"

"Me and my big mouth," Twister muttered to himself. He glanced at the grinning red-head, sighed, and began his narrative as he led the way out of the room. Bert listened attentively as he followed.

"Well, one night I was driving down the Bayshore Highway of the city, when..."  
Part Three - School Daze!

"What's the matter, Pop?" Ranma's voice taunted. "Gettin' slow in your old age?" There was a loud splash immediately after that statement, and a moment later what sounded like a large animal snarling could be heard.

"Looks like you're all washed up!" Ranma's voice hooted. "Guess you'd better.... Aahhh!!" There was another loud splash, and then an angry young girl's voice shouted, "Hey!!! That's cheating, old man!!"

Bert gritted his teeth in profound irritation, rolling over on the bed and pulling a pillow down over his ears, trying to muffle the noise from the early morning practice session that Ranma and Genma were having. He cracked an eyelid open, gazing blearily at the clock. It wasn't even seven O'Clock yet!! Hadn't they heard of sleeping in?! A voice in the back of his mind reminded him that it was a school day, and that meant that pretty much everyone in the household had to get up fairly early. It also pointed out the fact that the two Saotomes always had an early morning brawl... err... training session. Great, just great.

With a disgusted sigh, he threw off the blankets and got up. After a quick clean-up and shave in the bathroom, he tidied up his room and made the bed. Mentally bracing himself, he took a deep breath and marched the final mile down to the breakfast table.

"Good morning!" Kasumi's cheery voice greeted him as he lumbered into the dining room. The eldest daughter looked, as always, friendly and cheerful, wearing a sunny yellow dress with a crisp white apron over top of it. Mr. Tendo merely grunted something that sounded like "uhmhmm" from behind his morning paper, but didn't look up from it.

"Morning," Bert sighed, trying to at least appear civil; he was a lousy morning person, and being rudely awakened by the martial artists in the back yard hadn't helped his disposition any. Kasumi didn't seem to notice his glowering thundercloud status at the moment. As he sat down, she placed a very large mug of steaming tea in front of him, placing sugar and milk nearby. Bert glanced from the beer-stein-sized mug to Kasumi, faint surprise showing on his face.

"Twister warned me that you were a big tea drinker," she explained, correctly interpreting his puzzled look. "Although he described your consumption as a 'massive chemical kick-start'."

"That's not too far from the truth," Bert grinned sheepishly. "I usually can't make it through the morning without at least one cup of tea." He added milk and sugar to the steaming concoction in the desired amounts and began slowly working his way through the caffeine cocktail. As the liquid level in his mug lowered, his mood lifted appreciably, making the day ahead seem not as threatening. As he was drinking, Akane came in and sat down at the table with a cheery "Good 'morning!".

"'Morning," he replied, taking another cautious sip at his mug. "How are you feeling today?"

"Pretty good," she replied between bites of breakfast. "After school today I'm going to be dropping by the university to meet this professor of Twister's."

"Professor Miyabi," Bert absently corrected, his mind suddenly leaping ahead to his own plans for the day. Sometime during the day he had to go and see the professor so that they could discuss his suit, and his rather unique problem, in detail. He suddenly woke to the fact that Akane had said something, and he'd missed whatever it was. She was looking at him curiously.

"Sorry," he apologized, flushing. "My mind wanders in the morning; what was that you said?"

"What are you going to be doing today?"

"I'm not too sure," he admitted. "Sometime today I've got to go see that professor myself; the rest of the day I'm kinda vague on what things to do." Silence fell for a few long moments, during which Bert wolfed down a few pieces of toast with cheese. The noises from the backyard, thwacking and slapping sounds, continued for a while.

As Bert washed down the last of his breakfast with another mug of tea, the short, red-pigtailed figure of Ranma-chan came in through the back door, straightening out her gi. A large panda loomed in the doorway behind her; the floorboards creaked ominously as the huge animal waddled across the dining room and sat down at the table. Ranma-chan also sat down, giving him a brief nod by way of greeting. Bert returned the nod, and continued to quietly sip at his drink. Silence seemed to hang oppressively over the table as everyone else quietly ate, and Bert knew it was at least partly the family's discomfort at having a total stranger at the table, although he wasn't really a complete stranger anymore.

As he sat, quietly drinking, he couldn't keep from glancing sidelong at the massive bear sitting nearby. Genma, in his bear form, was huge, and seeing a panda sitting at the dinner table using cups and plates like normal people was almost enough to provoke hysterical laughter. He resisted the impulse to say anything, however; he was just going to have to grin and bear it.

"So whatcha doin' today?" Ranma-chan asked him finally.

"Looking around, probably," he replied. "I guess I need to find a job, or at least something to keep me occupied for a while. I don't really know how long it's going to take to find a way to send me home, so I've got to do something or I'll go nuts." He clamped down ruthlessly on the panic that erupted in the back of his mind at the thought of not being able to go home; there had to be a way to do it. There just had to be!

"Maybe there's something at the university you could look into," Akane suggested. "Twister's said a few times that they're looking for people for various jobs in the labs."

"I'll look into it," he promised, "but I'm not going to rush things yet; I've only just arrived, and I don't want to jump headfirst into things."

"Unlike some people we know," Akane remarked dryly, looking at Ranma-chan. The red-pigtailed girl flushed, blue eyes narrowing angrily. Oh Lord, Bert groaned to himself, here we go again. Sighing, he knocked back the last of his drink, trying to ignore the calls of "uncute" and "jerk" that volleyed back and forth across the table. As the shouting match escalated Bert gave brief thanks that he was going to be elsewhere during the day.

Professor Miyabi looked up from her desk as a tall young man loomed in the doorway of the lecture hall where her class was due to start shortly. She frowned for a moment; he didn't look like one of her students. In fact, he looked like he wanted to be anywhere else but in the room at the moment. It was when the young man sighed and took off the white baseball cap he was wearing that she recognized Bert, relaxing her caution. Curiosity nudged the back of her mind slightly; given the way he'd reacted to magic earlier, seeing him enter one of her classes was the last thing she would have expected. She sat back, placing the papers she'd been marking to the side as she watched him approach.

"Good afternoon," he quietly greeted her, greenish-brown eyes flicking a nervous glance around the room. "You're a hard person to find."

"Oh? What makes you say that?" she inquired.

"Your courses aren't in the school calendar, and I really had to prod the registrar's office before they'd even admit that you were on the campus. Any particular reason for the 'hard-to-get' routine?"

"Think about it for a moment," she suggested dryly. "I'm teaching courses on something most people prefer to believe does not exist. Magic is something that violates reality as most normal people perceive it, and revealing it to the general public would cause some problems. Why do you think I prefer to avoid open displays of power? Secondly, putting 'Magic 101' on the course calendars would look like a joke. I have an understanding with the registrar's office: I don't bother them, and they leave me to instruct as I wish, recruiting the students for my courses as I wish."

"Sounds reasonable," Bert admitted, then smiled slightly. "I can just imagine the kinds of problems you could give them if you felt like it." The professor smiled back briefly, then turned serious again.

"What did you need to see me for?" she queried, watching him closely. To her, it looked like he had clamped an ironclad grip on his nerves in order to remain in the same room as her. A few students started to trickle in through the doorway behind him.

"When did you want to try testing me and my suit to see just what's going on?"

"Hmmm," she looked at him thoughtfully, considering. "I'm free after this next class; we can see what develops from there."

"Okay, that's fine with me," he replied, then hesitated, looking like he'd just swallowed something distasteful. "Would you ... mind... if I just sort of parked myself in the back of the classroom and eavesdrop?" he said, forcing the words out. "I'll keep my mouth shut and I won't do anything."

"Why?" she asked directly, meeting his greenish-brown eyed-gaze with a clear, level green-eyed one of her own. "Are you thinking of learning magic?"

"No!!" he snapped in a strangled voice, just shy of actually shouting. He made a harshly-checked, slashing gesture of denial as he struggled to get a grip on himself. Miyabi watched as he took a few deep breaths, visibly forcing himself to calm down.

"Sorry," he apologized a moment later. "I don't want to learn magic, but I think I've got to at least partly understand what it is in order to keep from dropping off the deep end and going nuts. If I can understand it, maybe I can help figure out how to get myself home."

"It's not a bad idea," she admitted. "This class might not be the best one to sit in on, though: it's all the upper year students. Maybe you should sit in on Twister's...."

"I appreciate the thought, but no," Bert interrupted. "I've already disrupted his life as it is; I'd rather not extend that to include his classes, too."

"All right," she reluctantly conceded. "Just find a seat in the back then. We can go check your suit afterwards."

"Thanks." Bert turned, and walked to the back of the classroom. Some of the entering students gave him a look of frank curiosity, but he avoided meeting their gazes and passed them by, sitting down at a desk in the shadows of the back corner of the room. Professor Miyabi thoughtfully looked at him for a moment, then turned her attention to the class as the last few stragglers came in and found seats.

"Good afternoon," she greeted the body of students. "I hope all of you have studied the items I requested the other day..."

Bert stifled another yawn, glancing sidelong at the clock hanging on the wall near him. The lecture had been going on for an hour, and he was bored absolutely stiff. Having someone ramble on about vaguely-understood concepts for a long time was the fastest way he could think of to put someone to sleep. Professor Miyabi was a marvellously clear and concise speaker, but his mind was having problems accepting some of the lecture material, and as a result he was beginning to nod off as his attention wandered. He was trying to think of a way to sneak out of the room without attracting a lot of attention to himself when one of the Professor's statements about casting spells grabbed his notice.

"One thing you must exercise at all times," she stated, "no matter what the situation may be, is control of your emotions. If you don't, then there is a very strong possibility that they will drastically affect how some of your spells respond. For example, if you try to light a candle while angry, there is the possibility that the spell will produce a fireball instead of a match flame. Your state of mind can influence how much, or how little, power goes into a particular spell."

Bert's mind cartwheeled off into another direction as the Professor continued her lecture at that point, dwelling on her remarks about emotions. Her statements made sense, and fit with his rudimentary theory of what magic was. The brain produced different electrochemical reactions based on the state of a person's emotions, therefore it followed that some of those reactions would affect how magic was controlled, adversely or not.

He abruptly realized that the professor had also unknowingly explained why his suit arrived in the spectacular fashion that it did; so far, it had been summoned whenever he was angry, and that could mean that his anger was 'over-powering' the summoning process, creating the explosions and shockwaves. While he didn't cast spells, he did seem to be exerting unconscious control over the forces that had affected him and his suit. He supposed that her explanation applied to him as well.

Bert gazed unseeingly across the lecture hall, mind racing. Maybe his suit could be summoned when he was relaxed? If that was the case, then getting to it if he needed it in a non-critical situation would be a lot easier, not to mention quieter for all the magic-sensitive people in the area. The main question was: just how did he summon his suit when he was mad?

Bert frowned to himself, concentrating and trying to remember as Professor Miyabi called for a volunteer from the class to demonstrate a spell for animating objects. He briefly wondered why the topic of cartoons had entered a magic class, then dismissed the thought as irrelevant. Now, each time he'd called his suit so far had been a situation where he'd been angry, and in real danger. Each time, he'd immediately envisioned himself in his suit, responding to the threat to himself somehow, usually with his weapons. Somehow, that had translated into a process that had teleported his suit instantly to him. Now what if he envisioned a more gradual change? Would that quietly summon his armor to him?

Bert watched as a young woman with long black hair and dark clothing stood up near the front of the class. He'd seen her entering earlier when he'd been talking to the Professor, and at the time, she'd given him a faintly appraising look that had made him nervous. Now, it appeared that she was going to do the demonstration for the Professor. He turned his attention back to his contemplations, although he noted in the back of his mind that the black-haired girl was drawing a circle on the floor around what looked like a small stone statue, wondering what she was going to do.

Bert looked down at his hands, flexed them a couple of times, and took a deep breath. Closing his eyes, he put his head back and concentrated on forming an image of his suit in his mind. He knew every contour of the armor intimately, and it didn't take long to form an image of the silver-and-blue hardsuit. In his mind, he began mentally picturing himself stepping into his suit and starting the closure processes.

At the front of the classroom, the black-haired girl started weaving complicated patterns in the air with her hands.

Professor Miyabi concealed an irritated frown as she glanced around the classroom; there was an aggravating, low-pitched, almost subliminal hum emanating from somewhere in the room, and she couldn't seem to locate the source. The noise, while not loud, was annoying enough that it could possibly distract someone while casting spells, which would not be a Good Thing.

Reminded of what was going on, she returned her attention to Natsumi, who was casting a spell to animate the small stone gargoyle statue sitting on the floor. A rudimentary spell at her student's level, it nevertheless required great precision to cast properly. As she watched, Miyabi noted that a few of the other students had noticed the hum, and were fidgeting. It suddenly hit her that all of the ones fidgeting were the ones in the class that were the most magic-sensitive, and she started keeping a close eye on Natsumi to try and determine if the black-haired girl was affected. Natsumi finished the closing gestures of the spell, and pointed at the statue. The chalk circle on the floor glowed briefly, and then the small statue began to move.

It also began to grow.

Miyabi stared disbelievingly at the rapidly growing gargoyle as Natsumi backed away in utter shock; that spell shouldn't have had the effect it was having now! The small statue was only supposed to have walked a few steps around the circle, and then stopped moving. It was now about four feet in height, proportionately broad, and still growing fast. Stony eyes on the gargoyle opened, revealing an evil, pulsing purple glow, and clawed hands flexed menacingly.

Shock snapped Miyabi back to the peril of the situation. Bracing herself, she snapped out a quick counterspell to eliminate the one that had animated the statue, but it had no effect at all. As the professor tried to think of a more powerful spell to use, the gargoyle stepped across the chalk circle, beginning a slow, rumbling approach towards Natsumi, flexing stony claws and wings. It was around ten feet tall now, and appeared to have stopped growing.

As if the stone monster's menacing approach had been a signal, the remainder of the class bolted, pouring out the doors of the classroom in a barely-controlled escape. Miyabi envied them briefly; she had to stay and stop the monster before it could get out and cause damage that could lead to awkward questions. Natsumi was still seemingly paralyzed by fear; the young woman had tried cancelling her spell herself, but nothing had happened. She was staring like a trapped rat at the grey creature as it loomed over her.

"Look out!!" Miyabi heard someone shout, then a moving blur dodged past her. As she watched, Bert ducked under the gargoyle's wings, and snatched Natsumi barely out of the way of a hissing claw swipe. He ducked another strike at himself and shoved Natsumi ahead of him, trying to get her clear of the ponderous stone juggernaut. She stumbled and fell, and Bert tried to pull her up and drag her with him as he retreated from the slowly advancing stone statue.

Miyabi muttered another counterspell, unleashing it on the gargoyle again. Again, nothing happened; it was as if there was some other kind of magic interfering with her spell. She watched in helpless frustration as Bert tried again to get Natsumi out of the way, but failed. Natsumi was too scared or stunned to co-operate in his efforts to get her to move, and was tripping them up. As the stumbling pair barely avoided another raking swipe, Bert suddenly shoved Natsumi out of the way, and turned to face the gargoyle, taking a wide-legged stance.

"Bert!!" Miyabi yelled, face paling as she recognized a combat-type stance. "Don't do it!! You don't know...." She cut off the shout as a swirling purple glow suddenly enveloped him, coalescing into a silver-and-blue armor suit. There was no deafening magical explosion this time, just a muffled "whoomp" noise and a quick breeze. She stared incredulously, a look mirrored by the surprised Natsumi from where she was sprawled on the floor. However, Miyabi's surprise was more from the manner in which it had been accomplished; how had he managed that trick without levelling the surrounding area?!

"Hold vile monster!" SkyKnight's electronic voice boomed suddenly. "Here endeth your foul advance!"

The gargoyle was unimpressed, and its stony claws speared towards the silver armor suit. Lightning-quick, SkyKnight slapped the thrusting arm aside, following through with an uppercut to the gargoyle's head. There was a loud clang, and the stone leviathan rocked slightly, but that was it. The punch, even though backed by the hardsuit's considerable strength, hadn't even scratched the statue's rocky hide.

"Oops! Oh shit!!" SkyKnight ducked another claw swipe. This time he grabbed the monster's arm and jerked it up into the air, spinning around and throwing it over his back. The stone creature smashed the front row of desks into pulverized debris as it landed on top of them, and Professor Miyabi had to duck flying splinters. She quickly got out of the way of the two combatants, retreating to where Natsumi was standing, the younger woman staring agape at the silver-armored figure.

"Okay, buster," SkyKnight addressed the gargoyle. "Let's see you take this for granite, then!" His arms snapped up, and twin, coruscating bolts of crackling crimson energy slammed into the gargoyle with a thundering blast, gouging huge holes into its hide. The monster snarled, a noise reminiscent of a landslide, and lunged towards the silver hardsuit.

"Uh-uh, ugly," SkyKnight said. "I've got your number now! No more Mr. Gneiss guy!" The silver-clad Knight Saber wound up and smashed the gargoyle sprawling with a tremendous roundhouse punch. The gargoyle flew into the few remaining intact desks in the room, demolishing them. As the stone behemoth awkwardly tried to get back to its feet, SkyKnight cut loose with all of his onboard particle lasers. Four searing beams of red-white energy hammered into the stone monster, spraying red-hot chunks of rock everywhere. Miyabi and Natsumi ducked the flying shards, coughing in the acrid smoke that began to fill the room.

"Anyone for some spare gravel?" SkyKnight's voice asked, the silver suit suddenly looming out of the drifting haze in front of them. The professor couldn't answer for a moment, being still busy coughing. The helmet on the suit swivelled to regard Natsumi.

"Are you okay, M'Lady?" he asked courteously. She nodded uncertainly, not quite sure what to make of the towering armored figure.

"Who are you?" the wide-eyed, black-haired girl finally asked.

"His name," Miyabi, having cleared her throat, stated before Bert could proclaim his name in a suitably chivalrous, and impressive, manner, "is Bert, which will soon become mud unless he tells me how he brought that blasted armor so silently this time."

"That's not very polite, Professor. I didn't have a chance to introduce myself," Bert protested. He relented under her stern, unwavering stare. "Oh, okay! I got the idea listening to a part of your lecture, all right?"

"My lecture?? Which part? And take off that helmet so I can see your face; I hate talking to a blank piece of plastic."

"Ceramics, not plastic," Bert corrected as he took off the helmet. He dusted off the helmet as best he could and tucked it under his elbow, grinning innocently at the aggrieved professor.

"I don't know which is worse; the magical headaches that armor can cause, or the puns," Miyabi muttered loudly. Bert put on a hurt expression, but was ignored. "Just when were you experimenting with this 'idea'?"

Bert frowned; what was the point of this? "It was around the time when that stone stooge ...started...going...amuck..." The resigned expression that appeared on Miyabi's face when he passed the mid-point of his sentence caused him to reflect upon his strangely altered armor. The sinking feeling in his stomach that abruptly developed as the light dawned must've been how the Titanic felt when it developed a romantic attachment to a fickle iceberg. "You don't think that I ...I ... ayeeee..."

"...accidentally caused the spell to go out of control? Very likely," Miyabi confirmed his dread. "You forget that it was uncontrolled magic, or rather Wild magic, that affected you and your armor. And your trying to activate that Wild magic seems to affect spells cast within range. It seems to have many odd effects."

"Oh, great," Bert moaned, closing his eyes, and slapping a gauntleted hand over them. "I try to do something magically constructive and I almost wipe out your class. Just perfect." He just couldn't seem to do anything right in this wacko magic universe.

"Don't be too hard on yourself," purred a close, female voice. "You fixed your mistake very well."

Startled, Bert snapped open his eyes, lowering his hand, to stare into the attractive brown eyes of the girl that had conjured the gargoyle. She was very close, and smiled winningly up at him, making the red-haired young man suddenly very nervous. "Ah... um... I'm sorry, I don't know your name, M'Lady," he stammered, flushing self-consciously. He realized a moment later that he shouldn't have said 'M'Lady' to her again, as her smile warmed up even more.

"It's Natsumi, and you rescued me, my magical and quite formidable knight," she said seductively, lazily blinking up at a now panicky Bert.

"H-hey! Hold on a second! I'm the one who caused the accident!" he blurted.

Natsumi tilted her head, thinking that over. "True, but seeing you in action, protecting me from harm, more than makes up for that, I think." Standing stock-still in shock, Bert stared at the smiling young mage as she intertwined her fingers behind his back, drawing closer to his armored form to derive more comfort from it. He was saved by Professor Miyabi who had watched Bert flounder and decided to spare him, for now, from Natsumi's attentions.

"I thought you were going after Twister, Natsumi," Miyabi casually observed. The younger mage flushed red with embarrassment and quickly untangled herself from Bert, much to his relief.

"I... I am... I mean... I was, but..." flustered, Natsumi stopped short, unable to continue. She didn't know what had happened during that trip he had taken with the professor, but Twister seemed to have consciously or unconsciously decided on Nabiki, not Natsumi, to be his only love. Even if the other two didn't know it, she could tell by the signs he had displayed. In other words: she was free. Also, her attractive rescuer did seem similar in personality, if not in appearance, to Twister, whom she did like a lot.

That fact resolved her. "Yes, I guess I was. Not anymore though..." Her steamy look gave no doubts as to whom her next vic... er, target was.

What is with this place?!? I'm barely here for half a week and I've already got some girl wanting me to be her boyfriend?! Bert mentally fumed. Then again, that seems to be the norm around here for some people, Ranma being the prime example. I hope to hell it's not catching, but I don't think I'm going to get that lucky; hopefully it'll only be a mild case. He sighed to himself, noting briefly to himself that, despite Natsumi targeting him for future romance, his tension levels seemed to have dropped considerably as a result of his skirmish with the gargoyle; the hidden blessing to this mess.

"You two can resolve this later," Miyabi stated firmly, cutting in. "Bert, as you have nothing better to do, you can help me clean up the wreckage; this class seems to have been cancelled for today. However, the next will be coming soon. Twister's, in fact."

At that reminder, Natsumi quickly stepped up to Bert, pulled his head down before he could react, and kissed him lightly on the lips before running to the room's exit.

"We'll meet again, my knight in shining armor!" she cried before leaving.

Bert stared after her, slack-jawed, then groaned. "Why me?" he demanded of whatever gods would listen. No one answered him; either the heavenly court was currently adjourned, or else all the lines were busy. Miyabi's clearing of her throat caught his attention.

"Once you've helped me with this mess...do you know if you can return that armor? And bring your clothes back?" she queried archly.

"Um...no." Bert grinned sheepishly.

"That's what I thought," Miyabi sighed; this day was going to be an interesting one.

I can't believe he's doing this, Darlene thought disbelievingly for about the hundredth time during the class, staring at the sight in the front of the class.

Standing absolutely still in a front corner of the room, imitating its ancient forebears in museums, was the armored form of SkyKnight. Professor Miyabi completely ignored the incongruous intruder as she continued lecturing to the class. She hadn't given any sort of explanation when Darlene had walked in, only to jerk to a stop and stare at the technological knight. Miyabi had pointedly ignored her wide-eyed, quizzical stare, indicating that she was to sit down. The others in the classroom figured that the unusual sight was an illusion or something leftover from the previous class as the professor didn't seem overly concerned about it.

Darlene knew better, but wasn't sure what to do about it.

This is going to be an interesting story to hear.

Bert almost sagged in relief; the class was over and he would soon be free to move again. It had been an eternity standing like a statue doing nothing, but it was the best way Miyabi could think up to disguise him on such short notice as students had started coming in. He still didn't like teleportation, and had adamantly refused to be 'ported to her house.

One good thing about this being a magic class at least, he mused. No one thought having me standing in the front of the class was terribly strange.

He had occupied himself by running diagnostics on his suit over and over again. Fascinating how the some of the systems were now changing minutely every few minutes in terms of the power output, possible indications that a tune-up was needed. He'd have to examine it in detail later, if he could get the right tools.

Darlene had been quite surprised at his appearance; the look on her face had been comical to say the least. Bert had stifled an impulse to wave at her at that point. She'd glanced at him periodically during the class, shaking her head, and he'd grinned to himself as he imagined what must've been running through her mind. He'd also resisted the admittedly mischievous impulse to use his helmet speakers and sound system to 'punctuate' the professor's lecture with appropriate sound effects; he didn't particularly want to find out what being turned into a real statue would be like.

As the class filed out, Darlene stayed behind after saying good-byes to a cute, blue-haired girl whom she seemed to be friends with. When everybody save Professor Miyabi, Darlene, and SkyKnight were gone from the room, Miyabi closed the door and sighed as she looked at Bert, who had started moving again.

Darlene stepped over to him. "Why...? You looked like... I..." she began haltingly, then gave up and doubled over laughing hysterically; she couldn't help it, it just struck her as suddenly being funny.

Bert stretched his armored arms with relief, while being irritated at being the source of her amusement. "There was a little accident," he told her. "When we finished cleaning up it was too late to do anything but pretend I was some kind of magical experiment, as suggested," he finished, waving at Miyabi as the source of said advice.

"But why stay like that??" Darlene managed to get out. She took a deep breath to calm herself, but still snickered a bit every so often. It made her currently female chest bob when she did.

Turning his helmeted head to try to get rid of the distraction of seeing Darlene's current... endowments, Bert muttered mentally to himself, she's a guy; why should I feel an attraction? Right, a guy who's a cute, red-headed 100% female at the moment. God, I hope I get out of this universe soon; my mental health may depend on it. Aloud, he said, "I didn't know if I could get my clothes back the same way I did with my hardsuit. I don't really care to be buck naked at the moment. And teleportation is out," he ended fairly firmly.

"If you don't mind, Twister, change and get his clothes from my house, then teleport his suit back," Miyabi requested.

Darlene rolled her eyes. "This is getting to be a habit." Then she snapped her fingers. "Bert, did Akane say if she was coming to Miyabi's today?"

"Yeah, she mentioned she was," he replied.

"What's this?" Miyabi curiously inquired.

"Well, I discovered that a friend of mine seems to be able to make magic by cooking, she might be pretty strong too; she made her dish glow and it wasn't a pleasant sight."

Miyabi frowned. "Bad cook?" When Darlene nodded, the frown deepened. "Odd, the methods beginning magic-users use are usually aptitudes that come easily to the caster. You cast rhymes, Natsumi gestures, and so on." She turned thoughtful. "I've also never heard of a cooking one. Most strange. And you are right; for a failed recipe to even glow, she must be either strong-willed or strong in power."

"Likely both," Darlene muttered under her breath.

"Ah... not that I want to rush you, but..." Bert asked.

"Oops. Be back soon!" Darlene rushed out the door.

Bert sat back uneasily in a padded easy chair, a steaming mug of tea in one hand, looking around the book-strewn library as if he expected the aged volumes to leap at him. From a shadowed corner of the room, light glinted off of his hardsuit plating. The sight of his suit made him feel a little more secure.

"Relax," Professor Miyabi advised. "I just want to know now exactly what you did in the classroom today; then, we'll... I mean, I'll cast a couple of detection spells, and that will be it for today. After that, you can leave if you wish, or you can wait for Twister and Akane. We may be a while on that score, however; I can't recall ever having heard of anything remotely close to what Akane can do before." She stopped talking, and sat down behind her desk, waiting.

"Well," Bert began slowly, "I was sort of listening to your lecture, although I was getting kind of bored in spots, not because of you," he added hastily, looking sheepish. "I just didn't understand a lot of the material..."

"I believe I warned you about that possibility," she remarked.

"True," he sighed, taking a swig from his mug. "Anyhow, it was your mention of how emotion could affect your spell results that got me thinking..." He continued, explaining his rudimentary magic theory to her, and how emotions had figured into his equation. He then quickly described the process he'd used to summon the suit, emphasizing the fact that he'd been calm and controlled. The urge to protect Natsumi had also helped somewhat, giving him something to focus on. The 'damsel-in-distress' reflex, he noted wryly to himself.

"For someone who claims to not really believe in magic," Miyabi noted, staring intently at him, absently running a hand through her hair, "you've come up with a remarkably compact and workable basic theory of how magic works. I'm impressed."

"I didn't think it was that good," he muttered, flushing. "There's holes a mile wide in it."

"I didn't say it was perfect," she told him, smiling faintly. She stood suddenly, a commanding aura seeming to become palpable around her. "We'll run those tests now. Go stand by your suit."

Shrugging, he complied as Miyabi came out from behind her desk. She assumed a look of total concentration, and raised her hands. Bert tensed despite himself and tried not to look too panicked. Miyabi didn't notice and chanted a brief spell under her breath, pointing at Bert and his suit. There was no visible reaction, visible to him, at least, and she frowned.

"Nothing," she stated. "It's as if there's nothing there at all." She folded her arms, scowling at an innocent spot on the floor as she pondered what to try next. Her green-eyed gaze suddenly snapped up to pin him to the spot.

"Think about your suit," she directed. "I want you to form a complete image of it, but don't complete the summoning 'process', if you can help it."

"I'll try," he sighed, spreading his hands helplessly. "I can't promise anything, though."

"Fair enough," she replied. Bert closed his eyes, and again formed the mental image of his armored alter-ego. Miyabi cast the spell again.

Whoooooooooooomm!!!!!

"Aaaaaaaagh!!" Darlene shrieked, shaking her head groggily as she staggered drunkenly around the kitchen. Akane grabbed her in surprise, helping her to stand upright.

"Darlene!! What's wrong?!"

"Don't tell me you didn't hear it?!" the red-headed girl gasped, shaking her head again to try and clear it.

"I heard a muffled bang," Akane admitted, "but nothing loud enough to make me scream and stagger around."

"Well it sounded like a gunshot right in my ears to me," Darlene declared. A sudden, worried look appeared. "Oh no," she groaned. "That was the noise that usually accompanies Bert's suit appearing!" She tore out of the kitchen at top speed and bounded up the stairs, leaving Akane to follow a little more slowly behind her. Rounding a corner of the long upstairs hallway, she ran into the Professor's study.

Professor Miyabi was groggily picking herself up off the floor from in the middle of a pile of books, but she appeared unharmed. Darlene ran over to her.

"Professor!!" Darlene panted. "What happened?! Where's Bert?" Miyabi winced, holding a hand to her forehead.

"Please! One question at a time, and not so loud!" she requested. She lowered her head to her hands for a moment as Darlene stared around at the now empty bookshelves. All the books in the room were now strewn all over the place, but Bert's hardsuit stood seemingly unaffected in the corner. As she looked around, a pile of hardcovers near the suit stirred, and a dishevelled-looking red-haired young man crawled out from under them on his hands and knees.

"Anybody got some Aspirin?" Bert requested. "My head feels like it got used as a golf tee."

"You heard the explosion?!" Darlene asked in surprise.

"I was in the middle of it," he corrected dryly, wincing. "The professor cast some kind of a testing spell, and something didn't like it."

"There was a tremendous Wild Magic aura that sprang up when you started concentrating on your suit," Miyabi informed him. "It reacted adversely to my investigative spell."

"Adversely?!" he repeated incredulously. "You call that just an 'adverse reaction'?! I'd ....Owwww, shit that hurts!" he groaned suddenly, dropping his head to his arms. "Could I please get that Aspirin now?!" he pleaded from between clenched teeth.

"Find the bottle," Miyabi directed Darlene. "I may need the rest myself before we're through here." The red-headed girl nodded, and sprinted from the room, just as Akane entered the disaster zone.

"What happened?!" she asked, staring wide-eyed at the wild chaos rampant in the room. Miyabi sighed, and stood up, staggering slightly and placing a hand to her head.

"It's a long story," she sighed. "Let's just say that I'm going to have to be very careful when investigating Bert and his suit; the two have become magically linked somehow, and there's a lot of raw power in the bond. However, it's not evident unless he concentrates on his suit; if it's not directed at something like summoning his suit, it seems to create a magical field that interferes with everything else even slightly magical, hence the explosion that resulted. It may even stay around after the suit has been summoned, but I don't know that for sure yet."

"So how come I've got the Boston Pops playing the 1812 overture in my skull?" Bert asked from where he was hunched over on the floor. "I'm not magic sensitive; I shouldn't have heard a thing."

"Feedback, I think," the Professor replied, "but I don't know for sure. Wild magic is just that: wild, uncontrollable, and unknown. There's no predicting the effects it can have on people."

"Is it possible that Wild Magic interference is why I couldn't Heal Bert earlier?" Darlene asked, coming in with a large bottle of painkillers, and two glasses of water on a tray. Miyabi swallowed a couple of tablets with a swig of water before replying.

"It's possible," she admitted. "Again, I don't know."

"I'm getting so sick of hearing those words," Bert gritted from down on the floor.

"Well, do you know anything we don't?" Darlene put in quickly as the professor's expression turned stony.

"No..."

"Well then?" Darlene waited, tapping her foot impatiently, holding onto the other glass of water. Bert sighed, and forced himself to his feet, squinting against the pain in his head. She herself swallowed five tablets; because of her unusual metabolism she needed more. Her taking the painkillers reminded him of how sensitive to the blasts she was, and pointed out that he wasn't alone in having a headache.

"I'm sorry," he apologized, sighing. "I didn't mean it; it's just that pain makes me irritable." Darlene handed him some Aspirin tablets, and he quickly washed them down with a long draught of water. The professor's expression lightened somewhat.

"Apology accepted," she told him. Sighing, she straightened out her clothes, brushing the dust off of them. "Now then, enough of Bert's problem; time to go downstairs and look into Akane's talents now."

"Are you sure?!" Darlene asked in surprise. "I mean... I... are you up to it right now, after the explosion and all?" she stammered as Miyabi turned a cool glance at her protege.

"I'm fine now," she assured the diminutive red-head. "That was all the testing we were going to do for now anyway." She winced, rubbing her head again. "It was instructive, if destructive, to say the least; I've got a lot to consider."

"I hate to seem rude," Bert put in, "but I think I'll go for a walk and check back with you in a little while. I need some air after all that." He visibly pulled himself together, squaring his shoulders and taking a deep breath. Giving a concerned-looking Darlene and Akane a smile intended to be reassuring, he stepped past the women, and vanished downstairs. A moment later, they heard the door bang shut behind him.

"Well," Miyabi said brightly, rubbing her hands together. "Let's get started, then."

"Why did you just pour hot water over yourself?" Miyabi inquired curiously. As soon as they had entered her kitchen, Darlene had rapidly searched cupboards for a glass and had quickly filled it with hot water to use it to change back to male form.

The three had walked downstairs and Miyabi had led them into a remarkably normal, if spacious, kitchen. Perhaps not so remarkable, since visitors not knowing of Miyabi's unusual profession might want to look around. There were a few out-of-place items not normally seen in a Japanese kitchen, which reminded Twister of an aunt's kitchen that, while small, had held quite an assortment of unusual spices and equipment. Perhaps the professor had travelled a bit to acquire it all.

"I figure someone has to be magically immune while we do this..." Twister began, drying his hair with some wind.

"What was that?!?!?" Akane shouted angrily.

"...and I wanted to get rid of that headache," he finished calmly, flashing blue for a half-second, then sighing with relief. "Much better. I'd forgotten I could do this when I was female then realized a solution was a glass of hot water away."

"Answer my question," Akane demanded.

"Magic can be hazardous, Akane, if you're not sure what's going to happen." Miyabi nodded, causing Ranma's fiancÃ©e to cool down and even blush a little. "Take Bert for example, and what happened upstairs. If anything happens here I won't be affected directly and if you accidentally, say, animate something, I can hold it off while Miyabi casts a spell to deal with it."

"It sounds like you're expecting trouble, Twister," Miyabi commented, "which can be a good thing; you never know what might happen. Now," Miyabi smiled reassuringly to Akane, "do you have anything you would like to make? I confess I've become quite the chocolaholic so if you wish to make a dessert there's lots of chocolate for you."

Twister's eyes brightened. "Any chocolate chips?"

"Yes, why?"

"I knew the recipe for chocolate chip cookies off by heart even before my encounter with the Event." He grinned and turned to the would-be mage. "If you want, Akane, I'll show you how. It's an easy, but good one. I'll tell you as you go as I have to do it by memory," Twister offered. And I'll make sure you don't mess it up... He felt faintly guilty at the thought but it was important to find out if Akane really was a magic-user cook.

Akane, on the other hand, was debating his offer. If I can really do magical cooking, I'll be able to finally prove that I can offer something to Ranma besides the dojo, and maybe... Visions of Akane laughing at Ranma's other fiancÃ©es as she grandly waved a hand appeared; Shampoo gains a collar that is attached to a chain Mousse is holding and makes starry eyes at the happy Mousse; Ukyou forgets all about marrying Ranma and becomes a good friend and ally to Akane; Kodachi is transforms into a black rose bush that has her laughing face on every flower. Ranma enters her vision as a girl and Akane waves again; he turns permanently male and leaps into her loving embrace, kissing her passionately.

"Ah, Akane? Hello?"

Twister's voice disrupted her daydreaming. Startled, Akane looked up at his face; one eyebrow was arched in amusement as if he had guessed what she had been thinking. He doesn't have to guess, she realized. Even if he doesn't use that mind power of his, and I know he won't, he knows me and my problems well enough to know. She blushed furiously, then turned determined. And it's not like any of the others haven't tried often enough to do the same to me.

"Yes, I'd like that a lot," she answered finally.

"Good," Miyabi said. "Before you begin, as you are a beginner, I want to tell you to visualize your cookies turning, hm, let's make it green as I am told the last dish you made was that color." Her voice turned stern. "And try not to think of anything else. When you have successfully completed the cookies what you have visualized should be the result."

"Thank God we're not making Devil's food cake then," Twister quipped.

Miyabi paled a little. "That is not even remotely funny, Twister, even though you do raise a point for caution."

"You like Angel's food cake better?" The narrow look he got from the professor told him he'd better stop. He sighed. "Oh, well. Better put an apron on, Akane, let's get you cooking."

"Right!" She found an apron and tied it firmly behind her. "What do I do first?"

"Let's get out all the ingredients we need..." he started, and they were off.

It was fortunate that Twister watched Akane with hawk-like vigilance; she constantly tried to mess things up for some bizarre reason. He didn't know what was wrong with her; even when he told her not to include the shell of the first egg, she tried to do it again for the second. Things got weirder when Akane tried to beat the eggs.

"Akane! You don't use a hammer!"

"But it works on Ranma!"

"Argh. You're missing the point. You do it like this." He demonstrated, using the proper utensil.

"Ohhh!! But why did you tell me to beat them then?"

And so on...

When the first batch of cookies were ready to come out, Akane anxiously waited for Twister to take them out of the oven. After all he had prevented her from doing he didn't trust her near the oven and Miyabi quickly agreed that it wasn't necessary for Akane to do.

She also wanted her kitchen intact.

The psionicist opened the oven using his TK and carefully took the tray full of hot cookies out and placed them on top.

He took a sniff. "Hey, not bad! They smell great, Akane."

"Really??" The aroma reached her. "They do! Oh, thank you, Twister!" She hugged him tightly, in relief that they had turned out okay and for his help.

"You're welcome," he gasped; she had a strong grip. "Can I breathe now?" Twister was released by a grinning Akane.

Miyabi, however, was frowning. "Yes, they look normal, don't they? Perhaps you should cool them off, Twister, to see if anything happens."

"Roger." He concentrated and the tray plus cookies cooled down instantly. Now they could be picked up and carefully Twister did so with one cookie. "I see what you mean; it's not green." He wandered over to the window to look more closely at the cookie.

"Did you visualize your cookies turning green all the time like I asked?" Miyabi demanded of Akane, who was happy the cookies had turned out okay, but slightly disappointed that the magic hadn't worked. Then she remembered something, and blushed a little.

"Well, not all the time. My mind wandered...once." she admitted.

"What did you..." Miyabi began.

Bboooooooommmm!!!

Twister flew backwards as the blast's sound roared through the kitchen to the accompaniment of shattering glass. Miyabi and Akane fell to the floor from the force of the explosion as Twister hit the opposite wall of the kitchen where a person-height cupboard was and smashed into it. The contents of the shattered shelving scattered everywhere, mostly onto his unconscious form.

Miyabi cautiously picked herself up off the floor as the dust settled. "What is it with me and explosions today?" she muttered, exasperated. Noticing the wide-eyed Akane, who was looking around the messed-up kitchen with surprise, she rather dryly said, "I guess I don't need to ask you what you were thinking up that one time."

Akane lowered her head, ashamed. "I'm sorry." Her head snapped back up when she and the professor heard a groan.

"Twister!!" they chorused, and rushed to check on the one who had faced the detonation point-blank. They found that he was partially embedded in the cupboard that he had crashed into. He seemed okay and was only, understandably, dazed.

"Anybody got the license number of that cookie?" he woozily said as the other two pulled him out carefully, and pulled him upright. Twister shook his head and winced at the new headache. He Healed himself and felt much better. "Now that was a surprise filling!" he managed to joke.

"What did you do?"

"I thought that maybe something inside the cookie would show me something so I broke it in half. It showed me something all right," he said ruefully. "How to fly involuntarily."

"Oh, I'm sorry, Twister. I shouldn't have let my mind wander." Akane was gripping her hands together, tears beginning to fill her eyes.

Miyabi sighed and shook her head. "You're just beginning, Akane. Though this was a rather ... unique accident." She chuckled. "Exploding chocolate chip cookies indeed. Something new every day."

"That's Akane for you, violence in everything she touches," Twister grinned in a Ranma-like manner.

"Hey!!" Akane had her hammerspace-mallet raised above her head before she realized it. Her target, however, had vanished.

"That's better." Twister said, now standing over by the remaining cookie dough by means of teleportation. Akane lowered her hammer, realizing that he had insulted her on purpose. "You shouldn't get depressed; it was just an accident, Akane. You'll improve." He studied the dough warily. "I wonder if it required cooking or if it's just much less sensitive in this state. Maybe I should experiment..."

"You can take it with you. I'll dispose of the baked cookies," Miyabi firmly stated; she wanted no more explosions in her house today. "As for you, Akane, I think this demonstrated, however done, that you are a cooking magic-user. Therefore, if you do wish to practice have either I or Twister around when you do so. There are worse things than explosions," she cautioned, and was satisfied at Akane's careful nod; the girl appeared to have more respect for magic now. She did make one surprising request.

"Could I take the unbaked dough?" Akane asked innocently.

Miyabi blinked. "If you wish, but whatever for?"

"Oh, I just want to see if they're all as powerful as the one Twister blew up," Akane grinned.

Twister lifted his head to look at Akane with a surprised and slightly suspicious expression.

Uh oh, he thought. What's she up to?

Bert walked aimlessly all over the campus, his mind shifted into neutral. Walking around looking at the scenery was oddly relaxing, and he realized that he wasn't as upset at his recent proximity to magical phenomena as he'd been in the past.

"Must be getting used to it," he muttered to himself, shaking his head bemusedly. He wandered on, glancing briefly at the sky, where the sun was slowly setting in rosy splendor.

"Well, hello there," a seductive, well-remembered voice purred off to his left. Spinning towards the voice, he saw the attractive, black-haired young woman he'd rescued earlier coming towards him from a large building nearby. Natsumi had a couple of books in her arms, which indicated she'd just been in the library.

"Uhm, er, ah, hi," he stammered, flushing uncontrollably as she came up to him. "Natsumi, right?" Her alluring smile warmed up a few more degrees, and Bert began to feel trapped.

"That's right, my heroic knight-in-shining-armor," she breathed, looping her left arm through his right as if it was the most natural thing in the world. "Would you like to walk me home?" she asked, gazing innocently up at him with her brown eyes.

"Uhh, well, you see..."

"You wouldn't let a poor, defenseless, young lady walk home alone, now, would you?" she asked, a slight pout appearing. Bert's miserable defenses crumbled under the onslaught.

"No," he sighed, mentally wishing his chivalry would bugger off so he could just run away before he got himself into any more trouble. "I'd be, ah, honored to escort you home."

"Thank you," she replied, leaning into him as they started walking, still holding onto his arm. Bert tried desperately to control the feelings she was stirring in him. Her proximity alone was enough to start him sweating; having her... body... pressing against him was unnerving him completely. He felt like he was being set up for something, and he had a sudden feeling that it wasn't going to be an easy night.

They arrived at the apartment building complex where Natsumi was living just as dusk was settling over the city, sending inky tendrils of darkness through the air. It had been what felt like the longest walk of his life to Bert; he'd tried walking fairly briskly, but the black-haired girl clinging possessively to his arm had protested that she couldn't walk that fast, and he'd been forced to slow down. He didn't believe for a second that she couldn't walk faster; she was using every available opportunity to bump into him or move closer.

She hadn't said too much during their walk, either, which was a good thing. She was unsettling him so much, he didn't think he'd be able to put together a coherent sentence at the moment. He wasn't about to try initiating a conversation either; he didn't know just how much she knew about Twister, and didn't want to reveal anything that might prove awkward or dangerous, although the last item was the least likely of any of the possible outcomes. Natsumi didn't appear to mind his silence; she was content to walk along next to him, every so often giving him a lazily seductive glance that turned his mouth dry.

At long last, they came to the front door of the building. Bert took a deep breath, feeling like a condemned man given a stay of execution as he saw the end to his ordeal appear. The stay of execution was suddenly whipped out from under his feet.

"Would you like to escort me up to my apartment for a minute?" Natsumi asked, coyly fluttering her eyes at him. Bert's mind raced frantically, but he couldn't come up with a polite way of saying no that wouldn't make him look rude.

"Uh, sure. No problem," he managed to get out, mentally swearing at himself the entire time. He held the door open for her; she smiled winsomely at him and walked through. He swallowed, trying to relax, and followed her in.

After a short elevator ride, and an even shorter walk, they stood outside the door to her apartment. Natsumi turned towards him, and he braced himself.

"Thank you very much, my heroic knight," she told him, moving closer to him. "I felt very safe during our little stroll together." Bert valiantly resisted the urge to retreat from her.

"Uh, my pleasure," he told her, flushing. "I enjoyed it," he said, before he could think to stop himself. At the same time, he also realized that he had enjoyed it, in the back of his mind. What the hell was the matter with him?! He was in love with Nene! He couldn't.... couldn't..... His thoughts scattered like feathers in a gale as Natsumi's smile became very, very seductive, and she stepped right up to him, putting her arms around his neck, pressing her shapely body tightly against him.

"I enjoyed it too," she breathed. She pulled his head down, then gave him a very passionate kiss. Her lips felt warm and soft on his, and.... and.... Bert gasped for air as she pulled back, and started backing off like he might retreat from a homicidal boomer when unarmored.

"I'm, uh, glad you , uhm, er, ah enjoyed it," he stammered. "Maybe we'll...I'll, uhm, see you around sometime?!" He didn't wait for a reply, but bolted frantically back down the hallway as if fleeing from rabid animals. Natsumi watched him go, sweeping her black hair back over her shoulders, a slightly smug smile appearing on her lovely features.

"Oh, don't worry; we'll meet again, my knight," she sighed. She could see she was going to have to work on him a bit.

"Do you think he got lost?" Akane asked Twister as they walked quickly along the sidewalk. Twister shrugged helplessly.

"He shouldn't have," he replied, glancing around again. There was no sign of their red-headed friend anywhere. "The university isn't that big a place, and he has been around enough to be able to figure out how to get around." He glanced at the small paper bag Akane was carrying very carefully; proximity to cookie dough that made a good substitute for C-4 plastic explosive was making him nervous, and that was something he'd never thought he'd have said about chocolate chip cookies. He wasn't sure he wanted to find out what Akane had planned for it.

"Could he have run into Kuno or Kodachi again?"

"I don't think so. If that had happened, his suit would have vanished from the professor's house. It was still there, so he's obviously safe, wherever he's gone to. We'll look around a bit more. If we can't find him, then I'll teleport us back to the dojo. Maybe we'll run into him before long." As it turned out, he wasn't too far from the truth.

As the two friends rounded a corner, desperately running footsteps could be heard. It sounded like someone fleeing a pack of hungry predators. A high-speed blue blur shot out of the darkness ahead, resolving into a blue tracksuited Bert, running hard. He saw the two of them at the last second, and tried to put on the brakes, failing miserably.

"Ooooffff!!" Twister's breath deserted him instantly as the full inertia of Bert's movement smashed into him. He was smashed over backwards, and they both toppled over onto the pavement in a wildly flailing tangle of arms and legs.

Twister found himself, after the world stopped spinning, flat on his back, a lump rising on his forehead, and some very sore bruises complaining from other parts of his anatomy. A groan from nearby indicated that Bert was also not in great shape. From his vantage point, Twister could see a horrified Akane staring at the two prone young men.

Concentrating for a moment, Twister Healed himself, and sat up, looking over at the very feebly moving Bert. Sighing, he stood, and helped the battered red-head to his feet. Bert acknowledged the help with a brief nod, then sagged against a nearby lamp post, clutching at his right shoulder, which appeared to have taken the brunt of the impact.

"We've got to stop meeting like this," Twister observed dryly, looking his friend over. "What was the emergency?"

"I thought... I should hurry or I'd be late," Bert replied, still faintly winded from running and the collision.

The psionicist looked skeptical. "Uh huh. You were, and what were you doing that made you so late?" The panic that flickered across Bert's face for an instant before the red-head checked his expression made Twister raise his eyebrows in surprise. "Bert? What the heck happened?" he said, concern in his voice.

Bert groaned and rubbed his face with his hands. "There's some girl called Natsumi I, uh, met, and I think she's trying to seduce me."

"Natsumi?!?" Twister shouted in surprise. "Why...?! Oh boy," he added with even more concern as he remembered how the female magic user went after someone she wanted. "You're in trouble. What did you do to attract her notice?"

"You know her?" the tall Knight Saber asked, then hit his forehead as he recalled something. "Oh yeah, that's right! Miyabi mentioned that she was after you too."

"Not anymore it seems," the brown-haired young man replied. Bert saw that the fact did not bother Twister very much, and grimaced at the meaning of that reaction. "Still, I can be friends with her; she is a basically decent person and I like her now. I just hope she doesn't revert back to the way she was before. Natsumi used to be pretty ruthless when she's after something or someone, but now she's not so bad."

"You sure as hell could've fooled me!" Bert shot back. The other sighed.

"Look, let's go back to the dojo and talk about this there," he suggested.

Waving his hands in the air, the red-head agreed whole-heartedly. "Fine. Great. Let's just get going!" Seeing Twister's sudden grin, Bert's eyes widened in panic. "Waitaminute!!! Don't..."

They vanished and reappeared in Twister's old room that was now serving as Bert's.

"...teleport and why do I bother?" he finished disgustedly, fuming. "Damn it, you know I don't like that!!"

"I don't know why you don't, Bert," Akane said, honestly puzzled as she opened the door. "Nothing happens and it's quick."

"It's the principle of the thing. You shouldn't break the laws of physics like that!" Bert vehemently retorted. Akane just shook her head, and left.

"Be careful with that cookie dough!" Twister called out, sighing when he heard Akane's protest that she wasn't clumsy. "I just hope it doesn't go off."

"'Go off'? " Bert wasn't sure if he had heard correctly, and looked at Twister inquiringly.

"Imagine hand grenades baked to a golden brown that taste great; that's the kind of cookie Akane made. What a waste of chocolate chips," he sighed, then chuckled at Bert's disbelieving stare. "It's magic," he obliquely added.

Bert walked to the futon and flopped onto the cover, grabbing a nearby pillow and wrapping it around his head, like he was trying to shut everything off. "Can't I escape from that insanity?" he mumbled into the pillow, sighing deeply. "This is worse than trying to figure out what the government is up to."

Thoughtfully, Twister studied the prone form of the hapless person he had accidentally dragged into this universe. Slowly, he sat cross-legged near the futon and fell silent. After a minute of this behavior, Bert peered out from under the pillow, curious.

"What are you doing?" he queried.

"Thinking."

"About?" Bert prompted.

"Feathers."

"Feathers??" Bert stared incredulously at him. "Why are you thinking about feathers??"

"Wood."

Bert shook his head. "And just what does wood have to do with feathers?"

"The reason for life," Twister calmly replied.

"You're joking."

The psionicist grinned. "Actually, yes, I am."

Suppressing the sudden impulse to hit the young man sitting in front of him, Bert grated out, "And would you mind enlightening me as to just what was the purpose of that?!" It might have been the light, but for a moment Twister thought he saw sparks flash in Bert's eyes. Purple sparks.

Twister sighed. "Bert, you should take advantage of your situation and not mope about it." The derisive snort from the red-head made him elaborate. "Look, you're not in the universe you want to be in, but being outside of it gives you time! I mean it! You can think about all the troubles you have there without worrying that you'll get distracted by them all; even with the short version of events you told everyone here, I can tell you have a lot of worries." He held up a hand to prevent Bert interrupting. "I'm not saying you should stay for a long time, but you have an advantage here your enemies don't. Use it. Relax! Until I find a way to send you back you'll have lots of time." Twister grinned suddenly. "If you don't exploit this opportunity, I'll keep teleporting you over the Tendo pool until you grow gills," he threatened.

Bert snorted, though he was unsure whether or not the brown-haired young man seriously meant it or not. "Forced relaxation?" he observed sarcastically.

"If you want to call it that," Twister calmly answered him, sighing. "Mega-Tokyo is a lot more grim than this universe. You definitely need to unwind. Here you can, but you need to want to unwind and until you do..." Twister shrugged helplessly. "Just stop moping about and being useless."

That got Bert's fires going. "I am not useless!" he snapped, making as if to rise.

"Right. Just dimensionally impaired then," Twister shot back. "Will you at least try?"

"Okay, okay! I get the picture!" Bert sank disgustedly back down.

"I'm so glad."

"All-right already! I said I got it!" SkyKnight glared darkly at the psionicist. "You've definitely been around Nabiki too long."

"And Priss, and Sylia, and Linna, and Nene," Twister added helpfully, reminding Bert that Twister knew the Knight Sabers as well as he. In different ways, perhaps, but he still knew them. "But now that I've got that out of the way, I'd like you to help me with something."

"Oh?" Bert sat up on the bed, interested in what Twister wanted, although he was a little surprised; he hadn't thought there'd be anything around here he could help with. "And that would be...?" he asked, narrowing his eyes suspiciously as a sudden thought seized him.

"Nothing to do with magic," Twister reassured him, and the red-head visibly relaxed. "It's my psionic powers."

Bert blinked. "What do you need my help with that for?"

"Well... I hate blinking like a flash bulb whenever I Heal myself and I was wondering whether you had any ideas on how I could stop doing that. I also want to try using telekinesis on energy, not matter, and I could use help devising and implementing tests. In addition, I plan to make a small optical computer and you're free to use it whenever you want you when I finish it. It won't take long," Twister assured him, in fact he had already started but he did not mention that little fact. "What do you think?"

The red-headed Knight Saber pondered these options, but the one that had gotten his attention was the computer Twister had mentioned. The psionicist had mentioned building some type of light-based computer before, and Bert knew that such a computer would be much faster than normal computers, more powerful if large enough. A computer would be nice; he could use it to try out some of his ideas in simulations. The problem with that idea was that he had a full set of algorithms and programs back home, but nothing here. Maybe he could improve the programs and make some new ones...

"Ah... That computer..." Bert said, musing. "What kind of programs are you going to put on it?"

Twister's response was more than satisfying. "Considering that the Bubblegum Crisis universe was more advanced in programming, I should be making an operating system similar to what you've been using in your own BGC so that's not a problem. And I have to mention that Nene taught me quite a few things in the realm of hacking, after that I went out into the system and learned a lot more, even made up a few new tricks. As for hardsuit design...." Twister looked thoughtfully at Bert. "I never really tried my hand at that, perhaps I should have, but I do know all the specs and programs Sylia used. I... ah... peeked in once and a perfect memory helps a lot. They might be slightly different than your universe, heck it sounds like your BGC universe is even more of an arms race than mine so they'll likely be less powerful. But I think I can tweak them to your standards."

"I really appreciate the 'arms race' description," Bert said rather sourly.

Twister's face was apologetic as he shrugged. "Sorry, but it does sound like it."

"I suppose," Bert sighed heavily, reluctantly agreeing with the assessment, mentally castigating himself for having been a contributing factor, even though there'd been no way around it. "So when do you plan to start..."

"Hey!!" Akane's shout drowned out the rest of Bert's sentence. "Give back those cookies!!!"

Twister and Bert started, then both exclaimed, "Oh, shit!!" They rushed out the door and downstairs, but they were too late. Akane, and whomever had stolen her cookies, were gone.

"Oh perfect," Twister groaned. "Just perfect. Where did they go, and who went?"

Kasumi came out from the kitchen, and looked around. "Oh, my. Was that Akane and Ranma?"

Twister raised his eyes to the heavens mouthing "Why?" while Bert rounded on Kasumi. "Was it only them who left?"

Kasumi cocked her head, considering. "Well... I thought I heard Master Happosai a few moments ago; he might have left as well."

"This gets better and better by the minute," Twister said, a hint of resignation in his voice. "We'd better find them, and fast. Those cookies are definitely not to be fooled around with, much less eaten. Shoot," he added, and his brows furrowed with extra worry, "we'd better find them real fast."

"Why?" Bert asked. "What else are you worrying about?"

"If Ranma, Happosai, and Akane are running around town..." Twister hesitated, then went on, "...then they'll start attracting the others."

"'Others'?"

"Shampoo, Mousse, Kodachi, Ukyou, not Kuno since he's at the University...hopefully, Ryouga..."

"All right! All right! I get the point! Let's go then." Bert looked at the psionicist thoughtfully. "You've seen this before, I gather."

Twister shook his head, sighing. "Too many times. Let's move." As they left, running, Twister muttered, "I hope things don't get too crazy."  
Part Four - Cookie Chaos! Happosai's Ultimate Technique Countered?

"Hee hee! Come and get me!" Happosai chortled as he bounced down one of the streets of Nerima. He held a box in one hand and several assorted pieces of ladies undergarments in the other. The box held many delicious-looking cookies within that Happosai couldn't wait to try, but Akane-chan and Ranma were chasing him because of the thef...ahem, acquisition of said cookies. He'd seen the delectable-looking edibles before the box had been closed, so he knew Akane hadn't made them, meaning they were therefore edible; even Happosai was leery of Akane's idea of home-baked food.

"Come back here!" Akane shouted angrily, running to keep up with the old Master.

"Yeah! Give them back, y'old goat!" Ranma echoed beside Akane, keeping pace with her.

"Why did he have to take my cookies?" Akane loudly grumbled. Ranma stumbled hearing that, but quickly caught back up with Akane, a slightly uncertain look on his face.

"Did you make those cookies? I thought Kasumi did."

"Yes, I did! Why?!" Akane narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "Are you going to insult my cooking again?"

"No, no!" In a panic not to get clobbered, Ranma waved both hands denying it, and Akane settled down, slightly mollified. "I saw them too. They looked great." Akane was actually starting to look pleased: it didn't last long. "Who helped you?"

"What do you mean 'Who helped you'?!"

"Aw, c'mon, Akane. I haven't seen you practicing or anything so you have to have been somewhere else, right? It just figures."

Akane blinked; Ranma was actually making sense. For once. "Actually, Twister did help me over at his magic teacher's house," she confessed.

Ranma almost stumbled again when she said that. "Magic? Why were you there?" he said, some measure of dread arising from within as some instinct told him he was going to hear something very, very bad.

"None of your business, Ranma!" Akane flared, not wanting him to find out about her magical talents yet.

"But there's nothing wrong with them... right?" he pressed.

This time it was Akane who was hesitant when she replied, "Well...theydokindaexplode," she said quickly.

"What?" Ranma said, having not caught the rapid-fire reply.

"Never mind! Let's just get the cookies back!" Akane said. Still, she paled a little when she thought of all those cookies going off at the same time. Just one had knocked Twister unconscious; all together they might...

Maybe keeping the dough and making more cookies hadn't been such a good idea, after all.

Ahead of the pursued and pursuers, a familiar bandanna-wearing person drudged down the street. Amazingly, given this particular being's directional sense, or rather lack of such, he was facing the direction of the oncoming Happosai. Seeing the old hentai, and his beloved Akane angrily chasing the old man, he could do only one thing.

Happosai never saw the fist rocketing towards him until it was 0.0005th of an inch away from his face, a little late for him to block unless the fist has a panty, which this one did not. "Awk!" was all he got out as he momentarily hung from Ryouga's powerful fist, still holding the box of cookies high in one hand.

"How dare you steal from Akane!" the fanged young man angrily shouted at the dazed Happosai. With his free hand he swiftly plucked the box from the old man's hand before the aged hentai slid to the ground. Ranma and Akane finally arrived then.

"Ryouga!" Akane exclaimed, happy to see Ranma's friend and at the recovery of the cookies.

"A-A-Akane!" Ryouga stammered as Ranma, disgusted, looked on. "A-Are these yours?" He smiled foolishly as he held up the purloined box.

"Yes." Relieved, Akane held a hand to her chest and sighed.

"So," Ranma strolled over, smirking. "You finally found your way back, P-chan?" He dodged a furious Ryouga's swipe.

"Don't call me that!" the bandanna'd martial artist bellowed. The box wobbled in his hand and Akane paled.

"Um...could you give me back my cookies, Ryouga?" she asked carefully.

"C-Certainly!" Using both hands, he stiffly extended the box towards Akane, in such a jerky way that the lid popped up, making Akane flinch back a little.

Then Ranma noticed something. "Hey, where'd the old man go to?" he said, scanning the ground where Happosai had landed.

"Bwahahahahahahah!!!!"

All three looked up to see the old Master standing on a rooftop and smiling evilly at them. "If those cookies can't be mine, then perhaps I should use my ultimate technique!" he cried gleefully and whipped out one of his firecracker-bombs proudly, fuse burning.

"Oh, shit!" Ranma shouted, and grabbed at the nearest available object for something to knock the bomb out of the old man's hand.

So he grabbed one of Akane's circular cookies.

And threw it.

Time slowed down before Akane's horrified eyes. The cookie rotated in the air as it flew towards the bomb. Happosai, seeing the tasty-looking treat heading his way, shifted so that his mouth was wide open and ready to receive it. Akane's eyes widened even more when she realized what he was planning to do. Her shouted "No!" was slow, and she knew it was too late even as she yelled. The deadly cookie came closer and closer and....

There was a gleaming flash that shot through the air and suddenly a huge explosion erupted a hand span from Happosai's face, tossing him off the roof. There was a second explosion from behind the house as the bomb he'd held went off as well. Akane was surprised and relieved, while Ranma and Ryouga were slack-jawed.

"Wa-Was that your cookie, Akane?" Ranma asked, casting a nervous glance at the box a suddenly pale Ryouga held. Akane was about to answer him when someone else beat her to the punch.

"Whoa! Twister wasn't kidding about those cookies, was he?" Ukyou said as she came up to the trio. Her giant-size spatula was strapped to her back, as always, and her bandoleer of throwing spatulas was across her front. One of them was missing, having been used to detonate the thrown cookie before it met with Happosai's attempt to eat it. "That was close. Though I wonder if I really should have done it. Oh, well." She shrugged.

"How did Twister get you to come, Uk-chan?" Ranma asked his childhood friend.

Ukyou gave the cookies, which Ryouga was still holding nervously, a quick glance before giving Ranma a beaming smile. "Oh, he and some tall red-headed guy he called 'Bert' ran into my restaurant a little while ago. Twister told me that the cookies were dangerously explosive, although I was a little skeptical at the time about that, and that you and Akane might cause them to explode while chasing the old lecher. He said he needed more people looking, so of course I agreed and went in another direction. Lucky I found you first, huh, Ran-chan?" She edged closer to Ranma with a smile.

No one saw a new arrival land on the other side of a roof, listing intently.

"You bet!" Ranma heartily agreed, not seeing Akane sizzling at his comment. "What should we do with Akane's cookies anyway? Can't have Ryouga hold them forever." He smirked at the white-faced Ryouga, who could only give him a quick glare for fear of dropping the explosive package he held.

"Akane Tendo's cookies?" The hidden figure said quietly, then fingered a pole with a ribbon attached to it.

"So, Akane..." Ukyou smirked at the youngest Tendo sister. "Just what did you use to make this batch?" she said with the hint of smugness of someone who knows their cooking skills are far better than the other evident in her voice.

Akane flushed slightly. "That's my business!" she angrily retorted. "I..."

A ribbon snapped down from nowhere and wrapped itself around the box, closing the lid in the process. Before the startled four could react, the box was yanked from Ryouga's hands and flew up, up, and into female hands. A female who was wearing a black leotard with the design of a rose pattern on the front.

Black Rose Kodachi laughed triumphantly. "Hohohohohoho! Your cookies are mine once again, Akane Tendo!" She had stolen cookies made by Akane before in the hopes that Ranma would come for them; it had worked that time and she thought it could work again. "Come and get them , Ranma-dearest!" she said coyly, and then started bounding away.

"Hey, wait!" Ranma shouted before jumping up to the rooftop and pursuing Kodachi, Akane and Ukyou close behind and Ryouga not long after them. "Kodachi! Stop!"

"Crazy idiot!" Ukyou shouted at the gymnast, but Kodachi was too far away to hear. "You'll get yourself blown up!"

Akane said nothing, but she was wishing she had let Professor Miyabi dispose of the cookies after all. She had been so sure that she could handle them with no problem. Happosai had quickly proven her wrong, and now things were getting more and more complicated.

Ryouga followed the frantic group, wanting to make sure that nothing happened to Akane and, if necessary, protect her with his life if need be.

And so the chase was on once more.

"Wait! Whoa! Time out!" Bert panted breathlessly, and Twister reluctantly slowed down. "We're not getting anywhere," he gasped, trying to get his breath back. Actually, he'd lasted much longer than he had thought he could, a positive effect of his changes, at last, he sourly thought to himself.

Twister had to nod. Bert noted with a faint twinge of envy that the other wasn't even breathing hard. "You're right. It'd be easier from the rooftops, but..." he hesitated.

"But I'm slowing you down, right?" Twister's embarrassed look made Bert growl, "It's not my fault I'm not a bloody leapfrog. I fly, not jump!" He paused. Bert was sure Twister's look of realization was echoed on his own face. He slapped his forehead, disgusted with himself.

"Oh bloody hell, I should've thought of that sooner."

"This isn't Mega-Tokyo; there aren't many flying hardsuits about to remind you," Twister said helpfully. "And a hardsuit would be noticeable."

"In this town??"

Twister paused, then smirked wryly. "I guess I have to agree with you on that."

"All right then," Bert suddenly developed a wide, crooked grin, and Twister, for some reason, developed a sinking feeling in his stomach. The tall red-head stepped back a pace and spread his arms; an instant later, a purple glow erupted, racing over him, enveloping him from head to toe in a glowing nimbus of light. A second later, the light died, leaving the familiar, silver-and-blue armored form of SkyKnight.

"You know, I could almost get to like that," Bert's modulated voice said. The silver suit flexed its arms a couple of times, and shifted around, settling the armor on more comfortably. Short wings snapped out on the battlesuit's shoulder blades, and a low hum throbbed through the air.

"And now," SkyKnight declared, a grin evident from the sound of his voice, "Up! Up! And Awaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyy!!!!" The silver hardsuit shot skywards with a roar, flipping around in midair a couple of times, then arrowed away over the city. Twister was almost positive he could hear 'Off we go, into the wild blue yonder!' coming from the silver Knight Saber, and he suddenly wondered if things had just improved, or gotten worse. Shrugging to himself, he sprang into the air and started bounding across the rooftops.

He could've flown too, but there were two reasons why he did not. The first was that he might miss something if he went up high until it was too late. The second was that he still did not like heights that much. There were a few times in Mega-Tokyo when he had to, but more pressing things had been on his mind then.

Sighing, he continued searching.

"But, Shampoo! Why won't you go out with me?" Mousse pleaded, quickly walking behind his beloved as she rode her bike.

"Shampoo busy," the purple-haired amazon haughtily replied. "Have to find husband say great-grandmother."

"Hohohohohohoho!!!" a cackling voice cried as a familiar, leotard-clad figure bounced across the street ahead of them. Shampoo braked immediately in puzzlement and Mousse came up to stand beside her.

"Was that Kodachi I heard?" Mousse wondered, adjusting his glasses.

"Come back with my cookies!" Akane shouted as she appeared, obviously in pursuit of the nutty gymnast. Quickly vanishing, she left behind confused looks on Shampoo and Mousse's faces.

But then Ranma came, close on the heels of Akane. "Hey, wait up, Akane!" he shouted, then vanished like the Tendo sister. Surprisingly, Shampoo instantly made a 180 degree turn after seeing Ranma and tore off down the road. This caught Mousse off-guard.

"Shampoo? Where are you going?" He knew better than to think she was running away from Ranma. Therefore, when he saw Ukyou and Ryouga in the chase he decided to silently follow, knowing that he would have a better chance of catching up with his love.

As he started running, he wondered what was going on.

Looking behind, Kodachi saw that her Ranma-sama was still following, but so was the hateful Akane Tendo. "Come, my beloved! Come after me!" she laughed aloud, going down to street level. Suddenly, a tire loomed in front of her and landed on her, along with the bike it was attached to. "Awk!" she managed as she was flattened to the pavement.

Said bike's amazon rider smiled wickedly; the short cut she had taken had got her ahead just in time. "Aiya! Should not get in Shampoo's way, crazy girl. Shampoo now take bad girl's cookies." She snatched up the box of cookies in Kodachi's twitching hand "Now," she said musingly, "what Shampoo do with violent tomboy's cookies?"

"Yaaaaaaaaa!!!!" Akane descended from the rooftop and landed on the ground. "Shampoo! Please! Give me back my cookies. They're dangerous!"

The amazon smiled wickedly. "If Akane make, then Shampoo have no doubt of that!"

Akane glowered at the smirking girl. "That's not what I meant!" she snapped. Ranma arrived then, landing beside her.

"Shampoo!" Ranma grinned in relief. "You got the box away from Kodachi! Great!"

"Ranma!" Shampoo cried and flew off her bike to rush her love, box in hand. She skidded to a halt when all color fled from the other two's faces. "What wrong?" she said uncertainly, wondering at their reactions.

Then Ukyou and Ryouga arrived, Mousse hid for the moment. "Oh, great! You got the exploding cookies away from the nut!" Ukyou said, relieved. "Now what do we do with them?"

"Explode... cookies?" Shampoo slowly said, starting to figure out what was going on. Curiously, she opened the box and plucked a cookie out to examine it. "Look normal to Shampoo," she commented, and before anyone could react, tossed it down the street with Amazonian strength.

Boooooooommmm!!!

The explosion surprised Shampoo considerably as it made a crater in the street. "What know," she said wonderingly, "Violent tomboy's cooking just as violent as tomboy!"

"What was that?!?" Akane shouted, face red with anger. However, she calmed down quickly when she saw Shampoo's face; the amazon was smiling, and it was not a nice smile.

And then she plucked another cookie from the box.

"Uh, Shampoo... What are you doing?" Ranma nervously asked. He was answered when Shampoo threw the cookie straight at Akane.

"Look out!" Ranma tackled Akane to the ground while Ryouga did the same with Ukyou. The explosive projectile flew overhead and blew up against the building's wall behind them, punching a hole in the bricks.

"You okay?" Ryouga queried Ukyou, and got a whap on the head.

"I can take care of myself, Ryouga," she retorted tartly, shoving him off of her.

"Then you'd better start now!" he told her, eyes wide at an incoming cookie missile. Both jumped out of the way in time, as the cookie detonated where they had been before.

Meanwhile, where they had landed Ranma was asking Akane, "Are you all right?"

"No! She's using my own cookies to try to kill me! How would you feel?!" Akane angrily retorted. She was surprised when Ranma scooped her up and leaped, but knew why when an explosion occurred where they had been moments before.

Shampoo was enjoying herself immensely as she started tossing cookies at Akane, Ukyou, and Ryouga, making the surrounding area look like a war zone. Akane was hard to hit because Ranma was holding her, but if an explosion got them apart... And the delicious irony was that the cookies were the violent tomboy's!

In the clear sunny skies above Nerima, a shining hardsuit banked around as the sounds of shattering explosions sent clouds of smoke pouring into the air, like smoke signals.

"Uh oh," Bert muttered, as he noted the commotion. "Looks like the party's begun already."

Jets roaring, SkyKnight headed for the melee below.

Shampoo was startled when a ribbon came out of nowhere and snatched the box of volatile cooking out of her grasp. She had totally forgotten about crazy girl Kodachi! Big mistake.

With tire marks down the middle of her face, Kodachi's eyes burned at the purple haired amazon. "How... dare... you... mar my beautiful face!!!" she screamed, and having observed the effects of the cookies proceeded to throw several at Shampoo.

Mousse jumped out of the shadows and heroically shielded his love. "Don't worry, Shampoo! I'll save you!"

His love, being smarter, jumped away. "Stupid Mousse! Shampoo can take care of self!"

Just before the cookies hit, Mousse, from somewhere within his robes, pulled out a big and thick metal blast shield. However, when the cookies hit, they blew the plate, and Mousse, backwards and into a wall with a resounding clang. Mousse was not to be seen, but cracks in the wall suggested that he was now embedded in it; when the plate toppled over, the spread-eagled and dazed form was revealed. His glasses were slightly cracked.

"Stupid Mousse," Shampoo muttered, landing beside the hole her would-be husband had made.

"Great," Ranma said sourly, standing with the others in a nervous, loose group. "Kodachi's got 'em now and she knows what they can do." He turned to Akane. "How many cookies were there in the box, Akane?"

"Four or five dozen," Akane nervously replied, watching Kodachi hurl another chocolate-chip laden explosive at Shampoo.

"So Shampoo used about two dozen, leaving two to three dozen left," Ukyou reasoned. "Just perfect. So what now?"

Like an answer from the Gods, a rising whine heralded the arrival of a large, silver-colored humanoid form that landed on the street with a loud clank. Short wings snapped down to a folded position on its back as it spun towards the leotard-clad gymnast with the cookie box. Ryouga, Shampoo, and Ukyou stared agape at the armored form, not really believing what they were seeing; Ranma and Akane had seen Bert's hardsuit before, and were a little less openly shocked. Facing Kodachi, SkyKnight's electronic voice boomed out from his speakers.

"Okay, lady, give me the cookies nice and easy and there'll be no trouble," he directed.

Kodachi was surprised at this new arrival, then she frowned. "I know you..." she said slowly, then her eyes widened with realization. "You!!! You were the one who destroyed my precious flowers!"

Inside his suit, Bert swore fulminantly. She must've seen him destroying those damn flowers in his armored form after the arrival of his suit threw her away. He couldn't bring himself to actually hurt the girl but...

"Now I will have my revenge!" Kodachi shrieked, interrupting his thoughts, and hurled six of the cookies at him.

Time seemed to slow down as SkyKnight's combat reflexes took over. An icy clarity dropped across his mind as his eyes quickly flickered across his suit viewscreen's readouts.

A bit beyond the silver Knight Saber and the enraged Kodachi, Ranma and the others were diving for whatever cover was available as they saw the small swarm of explosives flung at SkyKnight. They almost missed seeing twin launchers of some kind spring up on the silver-blue battlesuit's shoulders, and fire a spray of some kind of projectiles at the incoming biscuits.

However, the effort wasn't quite good enough; two of the cookies blew up in midair, and detonated the rest just as they reached SkyKnight.

"Aaaaaaaaarrrrrggghhhh!!!!!" The agonized yell volleyed over the roaring, expanding cloud of smoke and flames that burst outwards from the blast center. Well away from the fringes of the blast, the Black Rose continued to laugh maniacally, clutching the box of cookies in triumph. After a few moments, the swirling cloud of acrid smoke dissipated, revealing a pile of crumbled rubble; the wall that had been behind SkyKnight. Of the silver hardsuit, not even a trace could be seen. With a very nasty glint in her eye, Kodachi turned towards the cringing group of friends.

"And now," she cooed, "I can get rid of you meddlers and have my darling Ranma all to myself!"

Several streets away, A lone figure was approaching the fight area, bounding from rooftop to rooftop, and homing in on the columns of smoke from the explosions. Twister saw and heard the sudden, tumultuous detonation, and the agonized bellow that mingled with it. Swearing to himself, and worrying over what might have happened, he tried to pick up the pace. Then, after a few seconds debate, used his levitation to fly towards the trouble.

His breath rasped and bubbled liquidly in his lungs as he tried vainly to shift the mass of rock and rubble pinning him down. He quickly stopped trying to move as he felt a deep, fiery ache spread outwards from his stomach again; he could feel the piece of his hardsuit armor that had been driven into his guts shift, enlarging the wound it had made.

Bert cautiously opened his eyes, but them met mostly blackness. His suit was effectively dead; the cookies had torn holes in his armor and him, and then buried him under a mound of collapsed building. Just perfect. He'd survived killer Boomers and Genom, only to get killed by some crazy nutbar hurling grenades disguised as baked goods.

A cough racked him, and he tried desperately to suppress it before it could convulse him in pain again. The effort left him weak and gasping, and he wished there was some way out of his current predicament. It was so hard to think though, all he wanted to do was rest.

Alarm coursed through him as he recognized the fact that he was dangerously close to the edge of passing out. In desperation, born out of the frantic desire to live, he reached deep into himself and braced himself for one last try at getting free.

What he found deep inside himself wasn't what he was expecting, however.

Warmth and relief flooded through him, and everything seemed to become surrounded by a soft glow. He had the sudden sensation of floating, and seemed to hear again an authoritative, reverberating voice.

"You have the potential."

The potential for what?!?!?! his mind screamed back.

"You know as well as I. Why will you not admit it? I have told you all that I may. The rest is up to you."

Anger kindled. He hadn't been told anything!! He'd been forced into whatever had happened to him. It goddamn wasn't fair!!!!! Without even realizing he was doing it, somehow he reached into the depths of the glow he'd found, and briefly accessed whatever it was.

And for one moment he knew exactly what it was, and how to use it.

Seizing it like a lifeline, SkyKnight drew on the power pulsing there, feeling it rush into him. Instantly, the agony eating at him vanished; he could feel his muscles, organs and skin slithering oddly as they re-knit together, expelling the shrapnel that had injured him. At the same time, he could somehow sense that his suit was re-building itself. Within seconds, he was healed and uninjured. Power coursed through him, wrapping around him and supporting him with a warm, somehow friendly feeling.

Underneath the pile of crumbled rock and brick, SkyKnight began to laugh.

"N-n-now look, Kodachi," Ranma stammered. "Why don't you put the cookies down, and we'll discuss this?" He sidled around, putting himself between the crazy gymnast and Akane. She was watching Kodachi, wide-eyed, and getting ready to jump out of the way of any incoming projectiles. Shampoo, Ukyou, and Ryouga were doing the same. Mousse was still stuck to the wall like some strange art form.

"There's nothing to discuss, Ranma dear," she purred back, her eyes seemingly lit with dancing flames. "I want you, and I'm going to eliminate all these hussies who are distracting you from your true love. Me!" With that, she scooped more of the explosive goodies from the box, and hurled them at her oppressors. Everyone dodged frantically as explosions tore through the already suffering suburb.

"Okay! Kodachi! Hold it!!" Ranma shouted, frantically leaping aside, hauling Akane with him. The cookie salvo halted briefly, and he sighed in relief.

"Okay, look," the black-haired martial artist said, sweating at the thought of what he was about to propose. "You stop trying to kill everyone else, and I'll go with you. Okay? Just leave Akane and everyone else alone."

"Are you crazy?!?!" Akane angrily hissed in his ear. "She's not going to buy that! Besides, there's no way you're going with her!!" Ranma didn't reply, watching Kodachi for her response.

"I don't think so, Ranma dear," the black-clad gymnast cooed lovingly. "They'd still be around, trying to distract you and take you from me. No, this way is much better!"

"Put the cookies down, Kodachi," a new voice interjected. "You don't know what you're playing with; you could get hurt." A hurtling, brown-haired figure landed smoothly on the pavement between Kodachi and her targets, coming up into a ready stance. "Now come on, be reasonable."

"Boy, is she the wrong one to say that to!" Ukyou muttered from behind Ryouga. Luckily, no one overheard her.

"Twister," Kodachi grinned nastily. "I don't think even you could survive getting hit with these. Stand aside; Ranma is mine, and I intend to take him!" Twister rolled his eyes; he'd survived a lot more than what the cookies could do. He was going to take them from her using psionics when...

"Hahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!" The deep, echoing laughter suddenly reverberated everywhere in the narrow street.

"Somebody's been taking lessons from Kodachi on laughing," Ranma muttered, looking around. Twister was frowning to himself; something about that laugh sounded familiar.

"Who dares to laugh at the Black Rose?!?!" the infuriated girl shrieked, whirling around. "Show yourself!!"

With a grating rumble, the pile of rock behind her shifted, and began to move. For a brief instant, a purplish glow beamed out from all of the cracks and crevices in the rubble heap. Chunks of brick cascaded to the street as a towering, silver-blue hardsuit shoved it's way out of the pile, pushing the debris aside until it stood on the street again, facing the young woman wielding the explosive cookies. Twister blinked in shock; he hadn't known that Bert had arrived before him.

"You survived?!" the black-haired gymnast said incredulously.

"I have survived more than thou shalt ever know, or couldst hope to know," SkyKnight's voice rang hollowly, dropping for some reason into an archaic mode of speech. "Surrender up to me that which hath been plundered, or earn my wrath."

"You've been taking speaking lessons from my dear brother," she sniffed, then her eyes narrowed angrily, and her teeth clenched. "I will have my revenge on you for killing my poor, defenseless beauties!!" Before anyone could move, she pitched another pair of cookies at SkyKnight, hitting him square in the torso armor.

The silver hardsuit was flung backwards, landing on the pavement with a clang. After a moment of pained floundering, he rolled over stiffly, and forced himself upright. The shocked onlookers noted that there was now a gaping, bloody hole in his armor, low and on the left side.

"I didst warn thee," the silver-blue battlesuit rumbled, clenching its fists. There was the sudden sound of air rushing in, and SkyKnight straightened up, as if gaining in strength. "Now thou hast awakened my ire!!"

A purple glow, tinged with faint, almost invisible flickers of red flashed suddenly, bathing the silver battlesuit from head to foot in magical light. As the stunned observers watched, metal plating flowed and rippled like waves of water; within seconds, the silver battlesuit was unmarked and apparently unharmed. He stretched, and the purple glow vanished. The ominously glowing helmet eyeslot swung to regard the dumbfounded gymnast.

"So be it!!" SkyKnight barked harshly. "Thou hast proven thyself to be unworthy of the courtesy due to a proper lady, and as such, I am justified in doing....this!!!" One of his shoulder guns snapped up and targeted the young woman. Kodachi's eyes widened, and she grabbed for some more cookies.

She never made it; there was a loud, muffled 'thwump' noise and a loud splattering sound. Kodachi was hit with balls of some kind of greenish goop that knocked her backwards, sticking her helplessly to the wall behind her. She sat there, glued down like a bug on flypaper, the hand holding the box still slightly stuck out. She glared impotently at the silver hardsuit as it walked up to her calmly; one of the globs had hit her in the mouth, rather effectively shutting her up and sparing everyone the customary threats of revenge.

"Thus hath that which was purloined been redeemed," SkyKnight remarked as he gingerly removed the box from her grasp. Turning, he walked over to the group of people clustered defensively behind Twister. With an elaborate bow, the towering silver hardsuit presented the box of volatile cookies to Akane.

"Your cookies, M'Lady," his voice boomed. "I wouldst recommend that thou dost dispose of them in as safe and expedient a manner as can be found, lest they tempt more people into rash acts of violence." The young black-haired woman reached out and cautiously accepted the proffered box, looking at the armored form in front of her curiously.

"Thank you. I...are you okay?" she asked. "You looked hurt earlier."

"'Twas nothing, M'Lady," the hi-tech knight proclaimed. "A minor injury of no significance."

"Uh, Bert?" Twister spoke up, frowning as he regarded his armored friend; he had been tempted to interfere because of Bert's odd manner, but had trusted the Saber to prevail. "Are you sure you're okay? You don't need the courtly speech anymore."

"And what, pray tell, dost thou find peculiar about my verbiage?" the silver figure demanded, wheeling towards him. "I..." he suddenly stopped, and then staggered, lurching suddenly as if he was passing out. "I... don't feel so good," SkyKnight's voice stated, sounding less hollow and more human suddenly. It was still electronic, but it seemed to lose the detachment he'd had a moment ago.

"I think you'd better get your suit off and quick."

"Yeah..." SkyKnight muttered faintly. "Yeah, that sounds like a pretty good idea right now." A familiar purple glow surrounded the futuristic armor, then faded, leaving behind a none-too-steady-looking Bert, who's eyes didn't seem to be focusing properly at the moment. Finally locking on to the concerned Twister, Bert calmly said, "I think I'm going to be absent from the realm of consciousness for a while." Then his eyes rolled up and he started to collapse but Twister and Ranma quickly caught the big red-head before he hit the ground.

"Damn," Ranma told Twister as they gently put Bert on the ground, "Kodachi really did a number on him with Akane's cookies."

"Doesn't look injured," Twister commented after scanning the unconscious Knight Saber, but he still sounded worried. "Unfortunately, that only makes me feel worse about it since no one simply collapses for no reason. Akane?" he asked the worried-looking Tendo daughter.

She started. "Yes?"

"Do you still want those cookies?"

"I... No," she finished rather forcefully, not liking what her cooking had done to Bert. Despite the seriousness of the situation, Twister grinned slightly at the look on her face.

"Good," he said, and the box Akane was holding vanished. "I'm pretty sure getting dumped in the ocean will defuse the things. Right now," he turned back to the comatose Bert, "I'd better get our Knight-errant to the Professor." He scanned the watching group of martial artists with his eyes, and sighed. "I'm not going to bother to ask how everyone else got involved in this, but what happened to Happosai?"

"The old pervert? Blasted himself with those bombs of his," Ukyou informed him, then muttered, "Might be a day or two before he recovers, the lecher."

"At least something good came out of this," Twister observed wryly. "But I'd better get Bert to Professor Miyabi quick. See you later." And with that, both he and Bert vanished.

"Hey!!" Ranma belatedly protested to empty air. "What about us?"

"More walking isn't going to kill you, Ranma," Akane said irritably.

"Aiya!" Shampoo immediately glomped onto a surprised Ranma. "Shampoo take husband to restaurant and make usual delicious meal to eat."

"Hey!" Ukyou protested angrily, whipping out her mega-spatula. "If Ran-chan eats anywhere, it'll be at my place!"

"Ranma!" Ryouga bellowed, reaching for his umbrella. "How dare you ignore Akane!"

"Saotome!" a slightly shaken Mousse said as he weaved his way towards the others. He trailed plaster behind him, a reminder of being implanted into a wall. "Leave my Shampoo alone!" Assorted weapons sprouted from his voluminous sleeves.

Akane took this all in, saw Ranma sweating heavily as the others closed in on him, and decided she'd had enough for today. She turned and walked off, looking curiously at the still-stuck Kodachi on the wall as she passed by. She couldn't resist a small smirk before leaving the gymnast behind, the sticky stuff still rendering her mute as she renewed her struggles to free herself.

"Akane! Wait!" she heard Ranma call after her. She almost stopped, but she rapidly increased her pace when she heard the next voice.

"How fortunate, foul sorcerer Saotome, that I should encounter you on my visit to my sister. And betraying the fair Akane as well! Defend yourself, villain!" Kuno exclaimed before the sound of fighting drowned him out.

Sadly enough, just another normal, relatively normal, day in Nerima.

Bert's awakening to the land of the living was progressive... initially. He moaned slightly, twitched his arms, and started to open his eyes.

Then...

Greenish-brown eyes shot open to their widest extent when it registered.

"Oh, my God!!!!!" he screamed, recoiling frantically away from whatever was underneath his nose that stank like... like.... hell! There was no comparison, and he prayed he never smelled anything ever again that even came close to this Smell!

"'e's awake, Professor. Peeze 'ap 'hat 'ottle," pleaded a gasping Darlene who was over to a far side of the room. Her voice was muffled because she had clamped one hand on her nose, and the other over her mouth.

Miyabi, who somehow managed to breathe the incredible stink without passing out, calmly screwed the cap back on the glass container. "As he's awake, I see no need to subject myself to it any longer, but I highly recommend you use my bathroom in the hallway before you throw up, Bert," she advised politely.

He was already out the door.

Emerging ten minutes later, the red-headed and slightly pale Knight Saber glared balefully at a calm Miyabi. "What by all that smells nice and clean in the world was that stuff?!?" Darlene was behind the teacher-mage and seemed to be sucking in great quantities of fresh air as if to clear out her sinuses of the offending and offensive odor.

"It's an old recipe that is quite effective for bringing magic-users out of unconsciousness after they've depleted themselves far more than they should, which you apparently did. Otherwise, it could take days, or even weeks for a mage to wake."

"Oh."

"Try smelling it with a nose as sensitive as mine sometime," Darlene complained, rubbing her nose. "And tell me again why I had to be in my female form? I could've filtered that... that odor with my TK."

Miyabi sighed. "There are several ways to wake someone who has over-used their powers, and this," she held up the glass bottle, "was one of the better and safer choices. However, if it had failed I would have required magical help in trying another."

Bert rubbed his face wearily. "If that was the best way, then thank God I woke up."

"Now that you are, perhaps you could explain just how you got like that in the first place?" Miyabi arched an eyebrow when she saw Bert immediately place a hand over his lower torso reflexively.

"What I did? I'm...not sure." He proceeded to explain how he thought he had healed himself and his suit, omitting the fact that he had heard a voice in his head because of the simple fact that he had no conscious memory of having heard it. Nor did he recall anything concrete of the differences in his mode of speech immediately after, but Darlene did. It was that gap in his memory that gave him the most concern. He'd had trouble with controlling his temper and rage before, but this was a truly different slant on things. "I was talking in an archaic way, you say?"

Darlene nodded, concerned. "Yeah, it was really weird, and it sounded like you were someone else wearing SkyKnight's armor."

"That's... not very comforting," he observed, looking decidedly ill.

"Sorry."

Miyabi was frowning. "I do not like the sound of this new development at all. If the bond between Bert and his armor is beginning to affect his mind..." she trailed off as she contemplated options, then shook her head. "I need more information, and this matter seems urgent. Therefore," she gazed sternly at the two, "I want you two to come back later tonight so we may try again to determine what exactly has happened. And I highly recommend you try to catch some sleep before then, Bert."

"I don't think," Bert yawned, "that will be difficult."

"Very well. I will contact you both when I am ready."

"C'mon, Bert. Let's go," Darlene sighed, then wrinkled her nose, "I can still smell that stuff."

"Makes scents," Bert deadpanned and dodged the irritated swipe Darlene made; obviously, she was not in the mood for jokes. "You're right, I'm sorry for the pun-gent joke. I couldn't help myself; it was in-stinktive."

He didn't miss the second blow.

Owww...

Shampoo sighed; she wasn't in a very good mood when she got back to the restaurant. Her face was dusty, clothes slightly torn from near-misses of spatulas, she was sweaty, and Ranma had slipped away from her sight while she was fighting her spatula-wielding rival.

At least Mousse wasn't following her right now, as he had been hit by a water hose sometime during the melee and turned into a duck. His constant begging her for a date would have earned him a low-altitude orbit given her current state of mind.

"" she called out tiredly as she entered the door. Cologne hopped out into sight, and took in her great-granddaughter's current state.

""

Shampoo heaved a deep breath. ""

"" Cologne replied calmly.

"" the purple-haired young amazon said in confusion. Not being able to bring Ranma here was what she wanted? ""

"" Cologne smiled and hopped out of the way so that someone else could come into the room.

Shampoo blinked in surprise at the new arrival, then broke into a wide, happy smile and rushed to embrace the other with a powerful hug, which was returned with just as much enthusiasm despite the amazon's current state. The purple-haired girl laughed, "" She looked at Cologne, puzzled. " _"_

_""_

_The beautiful, brown-haired amazon apprentice mage nodded happily, but with a hint of sadness on her face. ""_

_Overjoyed, Shampoo hugged her cousin again. ""_

_Cologne explained, "" she finished reprovingly, making Lotion flush._

_"" Shampoo asked curiously._

_"" Lotion replied, and smiled a little at the other two's surprised expressions. ""_

_"" Cologne demanded._

_"" The two younger amazons shuddered a little at the name. ""_

_"" Shampoo snorted._

_"" Cologne mused to herself._

_Shampoo frowned. ""_

_" _" the sad magic-user replied, looking down at the floor.__

__This made Shampoo even more confused. ""_ _

__Lotion froze, then slowly raised wide eyes to that of her puzzled cousin's. She couldn't believe what she had thought she had heard. It was an eternity before she could ask the question._ _

__""_ _

__"That feels much, much better," Bert sighed tiredly, shoving his dinner plate away, oblivious to the slightly incredulous stares he was getting from the rest of the table. He'd opted to join the Tendo family for dinner before taking the Professor's advice to get some sleep, and no sooner had he smelled what was available, then his stomach had started snarling like a den of starving lions. Several platefuls later, he felt comfortable again, and could feel the sweet siren call of sleep pulling at him now. He drained the last of his mug of tea, and set the mug down._ _

__"Looks like you've got some competition now, Twister," Ranma noted, shaking his head, then wincing; some faint bruises were still showing on the young martial artist, and he had a bandage over his forehead. Except for the groggy red-head, and Twister, who was looking thoughtfully at Bert, everyone else grinned._ _

__"No more then you, Ranma. Maybe we should set up an eating contest," Nabiki suggested slyly. "Noodles, perhaps?" Twister turned slightly green at her words._ _

__"No," he said firmly. "I'm never going to go through anything like that again. Once was enough; I'm retired from the noodle-eating business."_ _

__"Retired? Guess you're pasta your prime, huh?" Bert remarked with a feeble smirk. He was leaning on the table with his elbows, and he seemed to be sinking lower as time passed. The young psionicist winced at the joke, and he wasn't alone. The only person apparently unaffected was Kasumi, who was efficiently and speedily clearing the table. "I don't normally eat that much," the red-head added a moment later. "Don't know what came over me; sorry."_ _

__"I think you just really over-exerted yourself," Twister reassured him. "I've got to do the same thing when I get low on energy. And speaking of energy: you'd better get to bed before you hit the table." The displaced Knight Saber nodded, then with what seemed like a superhuman effort of will, stood, and staggered off upstairs._ _

__Twister watched him leave, still vaguely concerned. He felt a distinct foreboding when Bert left. Precog or not, there was something disturbing going on with the red-head._ _

__He hoped it would not disastrous.  
End Part 4_ _

__More to come soon, hopefully. ;)  
Bert's address is skyknght@sentex.net  
Twister(aka Darren Steffler) e-mail at: twister@escape.ca_ _

__Homepage at: http://www.escape.ca/~twister/_ _

__Anime Fan!!! Must watch BGC and Ranma ½ to the infinite!_ _

__[Go to Part... oh, bother. -editor]_ _


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